


Ink

by FrostysaurusRekt



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Flowers, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Aleksandra "Zarya" Zaryanova/Mei-Ling Zhou, Implied Ana Amari/Reinhardt Wilhelm, Implied Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mentions of past attempted suicide, Serious Talks about Depression and Coping, Soulmates- Tattoos, Strangers to Friends, Trans Jesse McCree, Which is not related to the bad stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-03-29 16:30:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13930896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostysaurusRekt/pseuds/FrostysaurusRekt
Summary: A touch.That’s all it takes.Something so simple, yet potentially life changing. Soulmates share the ink that spreads across their skin, transferred by the slightest bit of contact. Back and forth the ink flows, from body to body, a living mark of the deepest bond. It’s never painful, no shocks or slithers across one’s skin. It just happens, as most things do.A touch.That’s all it takes for Hanzo.-A Soulmates AU where touch transfers tattoosTrans!McCree;Nothing angsty in the story is caused by this.For the McHanzo Big Bang 17-18





	1. Rainflower

**Author's Note:**

> The chapters in which the more severe warnings happen will have them in the beginning notes! Just so you get a heads up on when that's coming.
> 
> My partner for the BB: http://omaano.tumblr.com/  
> Omaano is a joy to work with and I am absolutely in love with their pieces. I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do, and more, and consider browsing some of their other work on their tumblr! \o\  
> Each chapter with a piece of work attached will have it in the links at the end of the chapter!
> 
> Many thanks to CaptainxCorgi for editing this monster and for being a wonderful friend <3

The summer streets of Dorado flourish with life and color. Young and old alike bustle in the streets, enjoying the festival and all its entertainment. Most are here with the purpose of celebration and fun. Their festivities create a colorful chaos, the perfect cover for Hanzo as he weaves through the crowd, eyes sharp and calculating.

He’s here on a hunt as a favor to the renegade organization that has given him shelter for the past year. Newly fledged yet in hiding, Overwatch gives Hanzo an outlet for his skills without the manipulation and cruelty.

If the Shimada clan had shown an ounce of kindness where it counted, perhaps they would not have bred their downfall.

Just over two years ago, when Genji appeared during his yearly visit to Hanamura, Hanzo’s disbelief had been sharp. That grief had manifested as white hot anger and denial. Their encounters resulted in fighting more often than Hanzo will ever admit, but after several attempts and a few tense conversations, Genji was able to convince him to join Overwatch.

That is how Hanzo finds himself here, milling about the streets in search of his target, at the behest of Overwatch.

Hanzo longs to be on the rooftops, but the streets are congested. Anyone could glance up and spot him, prompting a call to the authorities about a figure slinking around on high.

A young woman attaches to his arm, crooning at him in Spanish and brushing her hand across the back of his shoulders. When her fingertips creep up the back of his neck, Hanzo flinches away. Wrenching from her clutches, he knocks into an older merchant. The man spills his decorative knick knacks on the ground. He curses at Hanzo while the young woman titters behind them at the scene.

Hanzo looks around at the spectators. One locks eyes with him.

A cigar hangs from between his pursed lips.

A cowboy hat casts the crags of his face in shadows.

A weathered red serape drapes over his broad shoulders.

A gun sits at his hip.

The man was Hanzo’s target. One Jesse McCree.

The biggest mistake Hanzo makes is staring long enough for curiosity to tip over into intent. Really, as a wanted man himself, he should know better, but it happens anyways.

McCree turns abruptly and disappears into the masses.

Hanzo is quick to spring after him. He pushes through the throngs of people. Yells of indignation at the intrusion trail after him. Thankfully he is not so slow in his pursuit that he loses McCree. He keeps seeing flashes of that distinct red serape whip around corners.

Neither of them are running. They know better than to draw that much attention.

Hanzo keeps an eye out for crafty misdirections, recalling the high IQ in McCree’s file. There were notes tucked in with the usual documentation; ‘ _underachiever’_ and _‘unmotivated’_ gave Hanzo pause. Most aptitude tests didn’t gauge street smarts, nor did they account for the lack of participation. That left Jesse McCree’s true intelligence as a giant, frightening unknown. The lack of proper documentation on Jesse McCree gives Hanzo a reason to be cautious in his approach.

He trails McCree to an off shot alleyway, and the gunslinger seems to just disappear.

The dead end should make that impossible.

Warning lights go off in Hanzo’s head as he eases into the unlit alley. There are no cliche, large dumpsters for McCree to be hiding behind, and the piles of crates and boxes are too small to give decent cover.

Inch by inch, Hanzo appraises the alley, which is why it will always baffle him how he is caught unaware.

It happens suddenly and without warning. A metal arm shoots out and wraps around Hanzo’s throat, hauling him against a broad body, hard chest armor digging into his back. He’s lifted until just his toes touch the ground. The hold prevents him from being choked but ensuring he doesn’t try anything too crafty.

Hanzo’s training, his upbringing, screams at him to fight back. He knows just how to free himself and incapacitate his attacker, but he’s been assigned to bring McCree in unharmed.

“You picked the wrong bounty to chase, friend,” McCree growls in his ear, low and threatening.

Hanzo grunts, grabbing at the arm around his neck. He finds purchase on the worn metallic surface, nails catching on the grooves.

Faster than a man his size should be, McCree wrenches one of Hanzo’s arms behind his back, leather biting into his wrist.

“I am not here for your head,” Hanzo speaks, keeping his voice even as he can through the near-strangle the man has on him.

“Who sent you?”

“No one sent-” His words are cut short with a grunt as his arm is tugged tighter.

McCree curls around him, every bit dangerous. His cheek nears Hanzo’s ear, the gentle tickle from his wild beard making Hanzo crane his head away.

“I know a lie when I hear one. So I’ll ask you one more time, _friend_ ,” he purrs, his drawl thick with the promise of violence. “Who sent you?”

Genji told Hanzo when McCree was asked to come back after the recall, he had, in no uncertain terms, told the cyborg to stick his sword where the sun don’t shine. Beyond that, there was no one who could tell Hanzo much about how to approach McCree with this subject.

Hanzo had the distinct feeling that the man at his back was much like himself. Men like them appreciated honesty. Even when that honesty was something they had no desire to hear.

“Overwatch.”

McCree tenses. “I told them-”

“I know what you told them.”

“Then why send a messenger? They want the message in person?”

Hanzo tries his best to shrug, managing a small one-shouldered sway. “They believe I can convince you to join.”

“Well?” The gunslinger gives him a jostle, a sharp jerk of movement.. “Convince me then.”

“No.”

“What d’ya mean, ‘no’?” He snarls.

Hanzo closes his eyes and tries to relax, ease the strain in his shoulders and back. McCree won’t kill him, Hanzo reasons with himself, if the cowboy wanted to cause him harm, he would have done so already.

“I mean, I will not convince you.” He says, and then with more conviction in his tone, “I cannot convince you.”

The pressure on his arm loosens. Slowly they are morphing from hunter and hunted to two men having a conversation.

The archer presses on. “It is not a choice I can manipulate you into. Everything I have read in your file says you cannot be swayed by pretty stories of a perfect future. You seek redemption and believe that rejoining-"

"Joining. Ain't never been one of them," McCree interrupts.

" _Joining._ You believe joining Overwatch will not absolve you of your sins," Hanzo lets out a deep breath. "And you would be right. Nothing will wash away the blood, the lies, the deceit. "

McCree snarls, shoving Hanzo away. "Hell of a sales pitch, insultin' a man." He eyes the archer up and down.

"Insulting it may be, but it is the truth."

"Ain't anyone taught you about white lies."

Hanzo fixes him with a sharp gaze. "Would you rather I try? Do you wish for a fairy tale about the cowboy who found his redemption, not in the bottom of a bottle at a seedy bar, but in an organization of heroes?" He throws his head back with a laugh, a sound so cruel, even to his own ears. Hanzo knows how much it hurts to hear. These are the truths he has to tell himself to carry on. "You are no hero, Jesse McCree. Men like us can never be."

“Us,” Jesse catches the slip up.

"We have one thing in common, which is why I have been sent after you."

McCree waits for him, stares him down with a furrowed brow.

"Thirst," Hanzo offers up pieces of himself that feel raw still. Even after all the time he's spent repairing what he destroyed the ache remains. "For redemption and for drink. Beyond that, we are different men from different worlds."

"Then you know," McCree's voice sounds broken for just a moment. He covers up the second of weakness with a brave scowl and an imposing figure. "There's no point in tryin'."

"That is where you are wrong,” Hanzo brushes invisible dirt from his shoulder to prevent himself from picking at the cracks in McCree's armor. A lifetime of habit crawls beneath the surface of his skin.

"Oh, do enlighten me." The sarcasm drips heavy from McCree's drawl.

"Just as much as we have failed the world, the world has failed us. In Overwatch, our purpose is not to be heroes, but to foster them. We can never be golden paragons that the world looks to for help. But we can help create a better world so that no one ends up as tarnished as we are."

McCree stares at him for too long, making Hanzo itch to pull the knife from his sleeve and hold it between them. The cowboy's face runs through too many emotions, too many thoughts crossing his expressive eyes. For someone who has been touted for having a terrific poker face, McCree practically broadcasts his every feeling. Hanzo notes not just on that rugged faced either.

McCree’s body slowly relaxes, not out of ease, but because he forgets himself, thinking too hard. He slouches and worries a gloved thumb over the grooves of his prosthetic. He flexes his jaw in indecisiveness, chewing on every thought before it becomes a sentence. Then swallows the words down when they aren’t perfect.

After what feels like an eternity, he straightens up and meets Hanzo's gaze fiercely. "One month."

"Excuse me?"

"I'll join ya for one month. Then I'll decide after that if I wanna stick around or not. Officially."

"I do not think-" Hanzo flounders for a moment. He wasn't briefed about making any deals with McCree.

"I do," McCree regains his easy confidence by leaning back, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops and smiling such a wicked smile that Hanzo's fingers twitch. "Overwatch has been hounding me since the recall. If they want me so badly, they'll let me do my test run. I bet ya a good bottle of top shelf whiskey they do anything I ask to impress me."

It's not a farfetched conclusion, but all Hanzo can respond with is a very sudden: "I was told to not make bets with you."

"I'll break you one day," McCree’s chuckle is dark.

The promise sounds a lot like another bet.

-

Aside from McCree's heel tapping on the ground as his leg bounces up and down, the ride to Gibraltar is quiet.

The cowboy feigns sleep on the far side of the transport, but nerves keep his leg moving.

Hanzo makes no comment on it. He recalls clearly being in a similar situation when Genji finally convinced him to join Overwatch's endeavors. The whole ride over had been a whirlwind of wondering who was going to try to murder him first. He still suspects that the good doctor Ziegler may have tried a time or two.

Now that they’re not obscured by the darkness in an alley he lets himself properly assess McCree. The man is wrapped in a serape that looks like it's seen better days. His hat is worn around the edges and the body of it sports several holes- too many close calls.

McCree looks lean. Not the kind of body that comes from being fit, but rather from being on the run. Too many skipped meals while stowed away, too much paranoia to finish a meal once someone’s looked at you the wrong way, and too little people willing to ignore such a large bounty.

Feelings that Hanzo is well acquainted with.

Overwatch will be good for McCree, Hanzo thinks. If not in spirit, then in body with regular food, washing, and comfort. It’d surprised Hanzo how much he’d neglected himself due to constant vigilance. He’s sure that the same goes for McCree.

McCree eventually gives up the notion of sleep, instead fidgeting with a stray pen, spinning it around his metallic fingers. The prosthetic doesn’t appear advanced and Hanzo is impressed with the dexterity of the appendage.

While McCree busies himself, Hanzo cares for his weapon to make time pass. Storm Bow had not been brought outside of the transport, but the motions of cleaning and fine tuning the weapon are familiar.

He follows his routine, inspecting the bow, the string, it’s balance, and moves on to the arrows. As he ensures their quality and setting aside any with imperfections, he can’t help but notice McCree watching him raptly. Hanzo says nothing, keeping to his own thoughts and letting his companion do the same.

Too soon, the transport is descending onto the tarmac of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Both men, eager to be free of the confining ship, stand ready at the bay door. Despite the fact that they’re standing, McCree’s leg bounces again, his spur jingling away. Hanzo knows the telltale sign of a man ready to bolt.

“One month,” Hanzo reminds him in a hushed tone.

McCree huffs petulantly but doesn’t brush off the comment.

Hanzo would be lying if he said he didn’t expect Genji to be waiting there when the ship landed and the door opened. McCree is his former comrade. It makes sense that the cyborg would want to greet him. However, Genji defies expectations, and pays no mind to McCree and his well being.

“Oh good, you are in one piece,” He focuses on Hanzo and sighs in relief when the archer steps off the transport.

“Would I not be?”

“I worried I might be getting a brother back with a few bullets in him,” Genji snickers behind his hand, hiding a smile that’s already concealed by his faceplate.

Beside him, McCree stiffens.

Hanzo crosses his arms and raises his chin in haughtiness. “I would have been more worried about McCree arriving with arrows in his ass.”

“Hanzo!” Genji chides, chuckling. “I will go get Angela,” his attention finally turns to the cowboy. “She will want to see you promptly.” All too quickly, Genji dashes away in search of the doctor.

The archer waits until his brother is out of sight, and definitely out of his advanced hearing range, before turning to McCree.

The man is glowering at him fiercely. His jaw clenched. He mimic’s Hanzo’s pose, arms crossed, though he’s tense in agitation. He must be here for one month, and it’s taken only one minute to rile him up.

“Apologies for Genji. You worked with him. You know how he can be.” All jabs and no filter. Genji has always been the same, even when they were boys.

“You’re _that_ Hanzo?” McCree growls, his tone deep, just like in the alley. Only this time, Hanzo feels the threat behind the words.

Hanzo looks away. He knows what’s coming. The judgement, the anger. Most still don’t understand how Genji is able to forgive his transgressions. Some days Hanzo doesn’t understand it either, but he’s learned to not question his brother on that decision.

His ambitions of one day leading his clan still linger in the back of his mind. When Hanzo can’t sleep, he spends long hours thinking of all the ways he could rebuild the empire he so readily ran from. Dismantle its archaic inner-workings, bring it up as something different and far more powerful.

One day, maybe. For now, this is where he is. He may not belong, it may not be his home, but he is _here_.

McCree is silent. The cowboy surely wants an explanation. Everyone always wants to hear Hanzo defend himself, hear what his reasoning could’ve possibly been for slaughtering his own kin. But he never does. There is no defending what he’s done.

“I was not lying when I said nothing can wash away the blood,” Hanzo speaks, turning back around to face the cowboy. Honesty worked before. Hanzo reasons such would work again. “Redemption is-”

He’s cut short by his own yell. A gloved fist connecting with his nose squarely and suddenly.

Hanzo sees red. Mission be damned. It is complete anyway. McCree is on base with not a scratch on him. Nothing was said about after he arrived.

McCree is scowling at him, lip curled in disgust as he looks down on Hanzo.

It’s a look that’s quickly replaced with a look of surprise as Hanzo delivers a punch back. Swift and efficient.

“Sonofabitch!” McCree snarls, holding his own nose. Blood slips from beneath his fingers and over his lips. Hanzo hopes dearly he broke something.

Satisfied with his retaliation, Hanzo tends to his own wound. His nose is tender all the way up to the pierced bridge, and he knows that his face will be sore for days to come.

McCree lurches, grabs Hanzo by collar of his jacket, fury written in his bloodied face.

Hanzo smirks in defiance at the taller man. Perhaps it makes the situation worse. Perhaps not. But the smug expression certainly doesn’t improve McCree’s mood. Hanzo holds himself high, impressively looking down his swelling nose at the cowboy.

“Do you want another taste, cowboy?” Hanzo taunts. Likewise he is grabbing fistfuls of McCree’s serape.

Without words, Hanzo gets his answer and solves a bit of the puzzle that makes up McCree when his eyes spark, dancing with wildfire. Violence is a language the gunslinger is well versed in. A life of crime leaves no room for weak or soft hearts. Challenges are a drug and a lifeline to prove one’s self as useful. These lessons are not so easily unlearned.

But, they make the effort to stray from their teachings.

McCree shoves him away with finality, spitting at his feet. The color is pinkish, tinged with the blood that has seeped down his face.

“Fuck you,” He hisses, stalking away, hunched over and headed to lick at his wounds.

The spat is done, but one thing has been established; Jesse McCree is not shy about expressing himself.

-

Hanzo frowns at his reflection in the mirror. The faucet run to fill up a glass of water tucked underneath. The bags under his eyes are more pronounced by the angry red and purples of his nose. Biofields can only do so much. They make the swelling disappear, but bruises still linger.

Angela hissed up a storm at him and chased him down after the encounter.

He’d been planning to slink away to his quarters, take some pain medication, take a shower and then sleep until asked to debrief. Unfortunately, McCree had seen the doctor first and informed her of the spat.

Though she took no offense to Hanzo’s lack of visitation, she was often morally compelled to check on any injured person on base. The good doctor gave him pain pills and sent him off with a cool gel pack to rest on his face. In a quiet titter, Angela told him that she’d instructed McCree to use a wrapped steak.

Hanzo quickly drinks the water and takes the pills before stripping. The shower can wait until tomorrow. Exhaustion is settling deep in his bones.

He turns away from the mirror as he pulls his top off, clawing at the back of the shirt until he can rudely yank it over his head. Hanzo tosses it to the nearby hamper and misses. A small part of him fusses that he should clean it immediately, but he’s tired and the chore can wait until tomorrow.

As he exits the bathroom, he tosses a glance over his shoulder at the mirror. He hopes the vibrant colors of his nose will dull through the night.

And then he sees it- a bloom of color that hadn’t been there before.

Hanzo approaches the mirror cautiously, raising his right arm and twisting as he does. Bit by bit, the new tattoo is revealed. A large throng of flowers grow up his hip and side, blossoming into a bouquet atop his ribs.

The bottom spreads wide on his waistline with a spiky plant and several, tight clusters of smaller flowers. Up and up they grow, reds and yellows, pinks and greens. It reaches up to his shoulder blade; two sunflowers stand proudly in the back, about the only ones he can recognize instantly.

This isn’t his.

His stomach drops. A feeling of sickness welling up in his chest.

He has a soulmate.

Somewhere out there, he brushed skin with a stranger who is tied to him forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case the image doesn't show up, here's the link to Omaano's piece for this chapter:  
> http://omaano.tumblr.com/post/172181632428/finally-finally-i-can-start-posting-my-pieces-to


	2. White Clover

When Hanzo was a young man, he actively avoided touch. His father was not physically affectionate. Only Sojiro’s words showed how much he cared. Hanzo’s mother perished just a few short months after he was born, and Genji’s mother was often too busy networking to pay the siblings any mind past a sharp word or dismissive gesture.

For years, the only touch Hanzo knew was that from a younger Genji, reaching for his brother’s hand in fear when the castle guards would thunder through the halls of their home. Eventually, even that lessened. Genji’s mother got the notion into his head that he must be brave; that there was no one he could count on in the world but himself.

On his mother’s word, Genji stopped reaching for his hand.

The physical isolation saw no end. Especially after Hanzo became aware of soulmates, tattoos transferring from one person to another simply through touch. He didn’t want to risk being linked to someone, to have that bond exploited, so he settled for an arranged wife.

His peers would call him prudish when he went out of his way to avoid contact with others. Hanzo called himself smart for avoiding a cruel fate. Engaged to be engaged, finding a soulmate would only cause an upstart. A conflict between his wants and his duty.

After Genji’s death, after leaving the clan behind, he worried less about the risk of finding his soulmate. For a few months, he stewed in the mire of believing himself undeserving of such a bond. In all honesty, Hanzo wasn’t convinced he even had one. How could he, when his actions clearly defined that he had no soul to speak of?

Thoughts like that were quieted through booze at first, and then through time. He no longer pitied or bemoaned not having a soulmate. He used the lack of connection as a means of self punishment. Eventually, his isolation became a fact of life, a thing that was.

Hanzo Shimada didn’t have a soulmate and stopped fearing the touch of others right up until he did.

Any time he finds himself in his en suite, Hanzo stares at the reflection of the flowers on his skin, wondering who they’ve come from. He prays that it’s not the old man he toppled over.

Fate has cursed him all throughout his life, and this seems to be one more spell in a long list. That he should find a soulmate in a crowded city, during a festival which attracts tourists from all over, on a night when he has run through the streets and traveled so far.

Any one of the festival’s attendees could have brushed skin against his hands, his neck, his face.

Hanzo spends the three days of downtime he’s given thinking over the flowers. Repeating the night over and over. Cataloguing faces he didn’t deem important enough to remember beyond a blur, and in his folly, missed the visage of his soulmate.

He gets plenty of time to stare at his new tattoo before he’s sent off on another mission. Reconnaissance with Ana Amari, of whom he’s found himself surprisingly fond of. The old soldier is sharp as a tack with fast aim and faster wit. She doesn’t let him forget where he came from, nor does she lord that fact over his head like a guillotine.

As Hanzo approaches the transport, his bag slung over his shoulder with Storm Bow tucked neatly inside, she waves to him in greeting.

“Come, Illios awaits us,” Ana urges, turning with a flourish of her jacket and disappearing into the ship.

Chuckling, he picks up his pace and joins her inside. “Yes, those archaeologists will not investigate themselves.”

Exaggeratedly, she stares into space, feigning a daydream of just that scenario. “If only they would, I could go to the beach and drink mai tais instead of watching dusty old men collect dusty old relics.”

“You seem to dislike anything dusty and old.” Hanzo points out. He settles beside her on the worn cushion bench.

“Does anyone?” She clicks her tongue, turning her chin up.

Hanzo doesn’t respond and lets a comfortable silence take over.

The quiet is peaceful. A far cry better than the restless absence of sound with McCree. The gunslinger’s quiet had begged for reflection and introspection, goading Hanzo into recalling his own trials and how they affected his understanding of a man suffering through the same. Ana’s quiet is just that, quiet.

Occasionally, she pulls out her comm, chuckles fondly at a handful of messages that have been spammed to her and sends a single, concise response. No matter how brief, she’s always sure to get a flurry of at least four answers.

Hanzo is used to these kinds of flights. Ana sticks to messaging her long time friends instead of making idle conversation with him.

So it surprises him when she turns abruptly and comments, “I heard you and McCree got into a bit of a fight.” Ana taps her nose, right where Hanzo’s bridge piercing lays under bruised skin.

“Depends on what you count as a fight.” He grumbles.

“Rumor has it that Angela had to pull pieces of your hair out of McCree’s prosthetic.”

He doesn’t know what insults him more; that lies were being spread about their mutual sucker punches, or that the lies depict McCree as coming out on top of the fight. As having gotten close enough to pull away with pieces of him.

Hanzo raises his chin, sniffing proudly. “As if he could get within a meter of me,“ He bluffs, hoping that the story of how McCree got the jump on him remains buried.

With a good natured laugh, Ana leans over, resting her elbows on her knees. She peers at him knowingly out of the corner of her eye. “He was quite the stealthy one back in the day. We gave him the spurs as a joke,” she begins imitating someone from the past, voice drawn deep. “Like a little bell on a cat.”

“Did it work?” Because there most certainly hadn’t been the sound of spurs in the alley.

“Not at all,” she laughs. Hanzo can only imagine at the memories playing through her mind that he’ll never be privy to. “He learned very quickly how to not make a sound with them. Not unless he wanted us to hear him.”

"Sounds like he was fond of pranks," Hanzo surmises.

Ana sneers, leaning back. "Not so much pranks as he was just a mean boy."

That sounds a lot like the McCree he met the other day. Quick to threaten, hungry for a fight. Mean.

She stares up into the ceiling of the transport. "There were only two people he was good to. His commander and myself. Of course, I highly suspect it was for his own good. Kept himself out of jail and in my good graces just enough that I would mentor him."

"I take it McCree was not favored back then?"

"He was always so angry and hostile toward anyone he thought was looking down on him,” Ana nods in confirmation. “Unfortunately, everyone did and he knew it. He was the feral dog that Reyes found on the streets and brought in. They tried to put a shiny new collar on him, but a wild dog is a wild dog.

"No one would leave him alone for long, either to pick at him or because of our own paranoia. Everyone besides Reyes was wary of his past and there were several against his enlistment.

"I found him one day at the firing range,” Ana's brow furrows, trying to solve a mystery that presented itself then, never to see a solution. "I'd never seen him so furious, and to this day, I don't know what caused it. Now, I was never frightened of him. Of course I was suspicious, but I was never _scared._ "

Hanzo hums in agreement. "Hard to be afraid of anything when nothing can get close." His tattoo itches at the statement. Someone had gotten close enough to leave their mark on him forever.

Ana chuckles halfheartedly. "The perks of being a sniper with a great shot," Her lips press into a thin line. "I was afraid that day, when I saw him."

Her admission takes Hanzo by surprise. He’s not as close to Ana as others are. Certainly they can barely call themselves friends when this closeness does not extend outside of missions or the occasional brush in the hallway. Yet he's learned that Ana Amari is an unflappable woman.

"All of his shots were dead on. His accuracy and speed were miraculous. I could never appreciate them when I worried how easily he could turn those skills on us. He was red in the face, screaming as he shot over and over, and even though I was terrified, I waited.” She laces her fingers together, stares at them.

"He never knew I was there until he was done. I didn't say a word to him, just took up my own slot at the range and practiced. I pretended that I didn’t even see him there. In reality, I was trying to not appear threatening to him. There was something teetering on the edge for that boy, and I didn't want to be the reason he snapped."

Hanzo makes a disgruntled noise. This is not the first time people have openly admitted that they believe McCree to be loose with his gun.

"But I think he saw it as me not caring. That I didn't care about whatever gutter Reyes pulled him out of. That I didn't care enough to think anything about him. He likes to be unnoticed but recognized. It's how he's always lived. You'll see his wanted posters as he walks by but no one will ever notice that he's actually there." Ana grins at the last bit, the expression of a woman lost to a fond reminiscence.

"How did you come to mentor him?" Hanzo asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

Ana's story is the first glimpse of the real McCree that Hanzo's been given. He finds the cowboy is so similar yet there are marked differences; many facets hidden behind lies of omissions and blacked out documents. That angry fire in McCree’s eyes, the innate desire for violence. That was real, not some facade.

"He haunted the shooting range in the Geneva base. He had a whole upper ledge that he made a home for himself. It was a storage area, really, but he slept there. Would even take his meals there like a mutt protecting his kill. He felt safe tucked away up there. He used the shooting range to calm down when his temper would flare.” Ana looks up, replaying the memory of figuring out where McCree hid.

"I knew I was being watched when I practiced, but I was always with people. One day, I went alone after a sour mission, and that feeling of being watched was still there. Next thing I know, McCree took up the range next to mine. He never said a word to me.

"He would never show up when I was with others, but if I was alone, he would be in the stall next to mine. Eventually, he asked me to mentor him. I asked him why, he was already a great shot. 'A lucky shot,' he corrected me, 'I need more than luck to save people'."

That is something Hanzo can understand.

McCree wanted redemption even then. A lifelong pursuit that he would never finish. It was no wonder Ana accepted to guide him. She wasn't starting with a fresh cadet who'd never held a gun. McCree had already proven he could shoot. He had just needed to refine that skill and wanted it for good reasons.

"I should have told him no." Ana gets lost in a thought, her voice falling quiet. "Sometimes I think about all the things the news says he did. I think to myself: there's no way he would do that. He was an absolute terror on base, but I worked with him for years, he wouldn't do that.” She slumps in her seat, uncharacteristic but it speaks volumes about how heavily this weighs on her.

"And then I remind myself, he _could_ do that. McCree could do all of it and more."

-

The job is boring. It always is.

Despite how everyone believes Hanzo’s a patient man, nothing irks him more than being idle. He knows that the ones who are standing still are the easiest targets. Granted, he and Ana are not standing, nor are they particularly visible, but it’s the idea that he’s doing nothing that bothers him.

He’s always been an aggressor, seeking his prey instead of waiting for it to come to him.

Ana, meanwhile, looks perfectly comfortable. Her posture is relaxed as she watches the archaeologist dig site through her scope. A few of the men have just finished arguing with each other. Even from a distance, Hanzo can tell that tensions run high between them.

His tattoo itches, pinpricks just under his skin. Hanzo knows that the tattoos have no physical symptoms. The sensations are all figments in his head. More often than not, soulmates are surprised and elated when discovering the ink.

Hanzo’s stomach still swoops when he thinks about it.

He’s never assumed he had a soulmate, nor that he would ever find them if they existed. It now leaves him with dilemma of not knowing what he wants out of it.

What is a soulmate, beyond someone you’re eternally linked to? Growing up, he heard all the girls croon about how a soulmate completes a person. The very thought disgusted him then just as it does now.

Hanzo doesn’t need to be complete. He is already whole. Fractured as he is, every piece is still present.

“You are thinking too hard about something.” Ana’s voice cuts through the uncertainty, brings him to the present. She’s still staring down her scope. A wry smile tugs on her lips. “Care to share.”

“Not particularly,” he snaps.

Ana hums and doesn’t prod any further. Something he is always grateful of her for.

Try as he might, his mind darts to the blooms across his skin. Only a few, such as the sunflowers standing proud in the back or the aloe sitting strong at the base of the flourish are recognizable.

He wonders what significance his soulmate places upon the ink, or if they place any at all.

Hanzo isn’t even sure if he wants to meet this soulmate. No good could come of being connected to a man working for an illegal organization.

He doesn’t know where to begin with this whole thing. He lacks in depth knowledge. Suddenly thrust into a situation where he flounders, Hanzo is almost resistant to ask for help.

His gaze falls to Ana and he thinks of her worldly knowledge. She would probably know something about this.

“What do you think of soulmates?”

That gets Ana to peel her gaze away from their mission. She stares at Hanzo with such a ferocity that he feels as though she knows the whole situation. “I suppose that depends entirely on what they mean to you,” she shifts the rifle down in her lap. “And what you decide to mean to your soulmate.”

The answer infuriates him; it's not even close to what he was hoping to hear. Instead, it's raised another question. Hanzo’s face must contort into something ugly because Ana throws her head back in a laugh and returns to business.

How on earth is he to decide what he means to someone else? His soulmate, just like any other person desiring a connection with him, will decide what place he has in their life.

"Do you have a soulmate?" She asks.

His tattoo burns, threatens to make him shout out an affirmative. Instead he shakes his head, slowly, carefully. "No, but I have been noticing the increased frequency of people meeting theirs lately,” he lies.

Ana hums, seemingly satisfied with the answer. "They can be a blessing or a curse."

-

Hanzo mulls over Ana's cryptic answer for the duration of the mission. Aside from a spat between scientists nothing eventful happens. The archeologists treat the digsite with respect and every relic is attended to and processed through the proper channels.

Even so, Ana and Hanzo wait until darkness. Nothing quite says 'we were spying' like popping up from cover from afar after all is said and done.

With the darkness, comes the rain.

The downpour happens so abruptly, leaving them sprinting to the transport with their hands held over their heads, as though that will protect them from becoming soggy.

The water seeps in everywhere, pooling in the toes of Hanzo's boots after managing to slip in through the tiniest of cracks. His hair soaks up so much rain that his bun lists to the side, tugging down on the ribbon, his locks suddenly heavier than the tie could handle. One of the upsides to the weather is that the rain is blissfully cool on his bruised nose.

Ana curses colorfully - Arabic, English, and Hanzo is sure he hears a few German phrases slipped in - as she steps onto the transport. She sheds her jacket to the ground, leaving her in a long sleeve shirt and her pants, and does her best to wring out her hijab. "Next time, remind to me look at the weather ahead of time."

Hanzo laughs, pulling his sagging bun loose and flipping his hair to one side. "You are the one who needs to remind me,” he retorts, trying to get all of the water from his hair before it drips down his body any more. He gives up and shakes his head furiously, the strands of black flinging rainwater everywhere.

"Must you?" His companion grimaces as some splashes on her face.

Normally, he wouldn't. However, Ana Amari is one of the few people he has allowed himself to trust. She must suffer for that honor. He says nothing, instead shaking his head again until his hair no longer flicks droplets.

"If the others could see you, Mr. Shimada, they would have a field day."

He stands tall and proud, flipping his hair back with a grin. "Ah, but no one is here but us."

"And the cameras."

"The cam-" An oversight. He pales, hunches and peeks over at a camera that is pointed at them. Really, the lense is pointed toward the main docking area, but it certainly caught the entirety of his glorious imitation of a wet dog.

Ana chuckles, proud to have cornered him.

Well, her face would look more proud, were black ink not smeared down beneath her eye. Hanzo stares, perplexed. "I thought it was a tattoo."

She mirrors his expression, confused until she realizes his gaze is trained on her eye. Ana touches her eye, pulling back to see wet black makeup covering her fingers. "It is," she says through a laugh. "Most of the time."

"Most?"

"Every now and then Jack gets a very fashionable black eye." She titters at her own joke.

Hanzo stares at her as she wipes at her face with her soggy coat. The woman looks starkly different without her signature eye tattoo. It's a part of her. A marker that he’s never seen her without and Hanzo has the overwhelming urge to turn away and give her privacy.

"You should see him with it." She continues. "He tries his hardest to do his other eye to match. It's a trainwreck."

"You and Morrison are-"

"Soulmates?" She finishes for him, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile. "Yes. He is my oldest friend. I was his second-in-command for years. You do not become that close without some sort of connection."

Hanzo rethinks everything he's seen around the base, everything he knows about Ana and who she associates with. Of course Morrison is nearly always there, but from all the pet names Reinhardt croons at her - "I was under the assumption that you and Reinhardt are together."

"Correct again, Mr. Shimada. Two-for-two."

"But you and Morrison are not."

Ana takes a seat, pleased to watch Hanzo figure out her life. She observes as though it's some sort of game, and perhaps it is. She could be pulling one over on him in retaliation for the splashes. "Not in the same way, no. Three in a row. You’re on a hot streak."

Hanzo sits opposite of her on the transport, staring at her clear face and trying to figure out where the trap is.

"But you are soulmates."

She tuts at him. "I already confirmed that, it doesn't count."

"Then you and Reinhardt..."

Ana leans forward, eager in his next assumption, making him pause, wary. She expects him to trip up and say the obvious: if she already has a soulmate in Jack, then Reinhardt is not her soulmate. Hanzo is suddenly very sure that this is a game.

Hanzo thinks back to early mornings in the mess hall and missions with the boisterous crusader. Reinhardt’s boasted about his tattoo and shown it off; an enormous, ornate, medieval lion on the broad expanse of his back.

There's no way of knowing if it was ever shared with Ana. The woman keeps herself covered. Similarly, Hanzo has rarely seen Reinhardt without a shirt. Of the times he did, the lion was always there, roaring on his back.

“You and Reinhardt are also soulmates.” It’s a gamble, but there is no solid evidence that he can recall. He can only assume based on Ana’s nature to play games.

“You guessed.”

Hanzo narrows his gaze. “Prove it.”

Ana mirrors his expression. "You have no evidence."

They stare at each other fiercely; a silent battle of wills.

"Fair," Hanzo knows he's right, but Ana is also correct when accusing him of guessing.

"However, you were correct."

"I usually am."

She laughs at his confidence, likely comparing it to his antics only a few moments earlier. How easily he has come to trust this woman, letting her see parts of himself that he kept tucked away, even from him brother.

Perhaps it is, as her tale about McCree implied, her lack of apparent judgement. Or maybe it is because Ana is a soldier and a mother, blending the two roles near flawlessly. Regardless, Hanzo finds himself laughing with her, at ease in her company.

"Is it usual to have more than one?"

Ana purses her lips, mulling over her answer for a quick moment. "It isn't common." She crosses her arms over her chest. "But not unheard of."

Hanzo prides himself on his silence, keeping information locked away. He gets a thrill out of hearing whispers about himself. He doesn't speak much and what he does say has a purpose. Perhaps if those few people had anything interesting to say, Hanzo would be more inclined to speak; more specifically, to ask questions.

"How did it happen?" His curiosity burns. Life draws his attention, demands he find every answer to every unknown around him. These same rules apply to those he surrounds himself with.

The old soldier hums, tapping at her chin. "Not all at once, if that's what you're wondering,” she supplies. "Jack and I discovered our marks soon after he made me his second-in-command. 'I knew I made the right choice.'" She imitates the gruff man between fond laughs. "Between you and me, I was a horrible choice for that job, but after Fareeha, I wasn't about to turn down a pay raise and more vacation time."

"I do not think you would be horrible. You are great at reading a battlefield and creating strategies on the move."

"I had to be." Ana stresses. "After that promotion, I wanted to keep it. After I discovered that Jack and I were soulmates, I worked hard to ensure that I stayed by his side. I wanted to protect him."

Hanzo stares at her, reads the distress in her face. She was his protector, that's what Ana meant to Jack. It’s possibly what she still means to Jack. She decided to watch the old commander’s back, keep him safe, and she became that to him. Her cryptic remarks from earlier begin to have clarity.

"Gabriel should have been his second. Yet, there was no one else who could have kept Blackwatch in line for as long as he did.” She begins to get lost in her thoughts, regrets of the past taunting her with everything she could have done differently. It's a feeling Hanzo is too familiar with. “No one else could have stomached it."

"And Reinhardt?" He gently prods Ana out of that spiral.

Ana snaps to attention, shifting in her seat. "Reinhardt is a new one. Back then, I fancied him, everyone did. Jack was the face of Overwatch, but Reinhardt was the heartthrob. Jack made soldiers. Reinhardt made supporters.” Her sigh is wistful. "It wasn't until my return from my extended leave of absence that I pursued anything. It took several dates for the tattoos to transfer, for us to realize what we were to each other."

"What do you mean to him?"

"I don't know." Ana smiles. "I don't think we'll ever know and that is alright. We're happy."

-

Hanzo is busy taking pictures of his back, craning his arm awkwardly to snap photos to better see the flowers, when someone knocks on his door.

He curses under his breath as his phone clatters to the floor. As luck would have it, his toe catches on a tile, stuttering his step so that he taps his phone and sends it skittering under the toilet. He grimaces in disgust, dropping to his hands and knees to reach for his device.

The knocking comes again, more aggressive.

"One moment!" He barks, irritated with the turn of events.

As soon as he has his phone in his hands, he tucks it away and heads for his door. Normally, Hanzo is not squeamish about who sees his body. He’s fit and proud of it but given his current condition... last second he remembers to cover himself, prevent anyone from seeing what blooms on his skin.

Tugging on a t-shirt, the knocking comes again- furious.

Hanzo hits the release for his door with more force than necessary, a scowl on his face, and isn't even the least bit sorry for it when he sees none other than Jesse McCree standing on the other side. The man has the gall to look upset with Hanzo. "You have no patience." Hanzo sneers.

"And you're slow." McCree rakes his gaze up Hanzo's form. "Ain't you Shimadas supposed to be fast?” His lips curl into an ugly grin, proud of himself. “Maybe that's just the one with cybernetics."

Hanzo puffs out his chest. "Would you like to test your theory?" He taunts, tipping his chin up. "It did not work out so well for you last time, if I remember."

McCree pauses, considers the offer seriously for a moment. His nose is just as bruised, if not more, as Hanzo's. The dark marks extend under his eyes making him look haggard and sleep deprived. "I'd love to, believe me, but," the cowboy huffs, kicking at invisible dirt on the ground. "I ain't come here for that."

"Then what did you come here for? Surely you did not come all this way just to insult me."

McCree mutters something under his breath, making Hanzo crane forward.

"You will have to speak up."

"I came to apologize!" He barks suddenly, brows knitted and a scowl on his face.

Hanzo crosses his arms and squares his shoulders. "Strange. This does not sound like an apology to me."

McCree grumbles, kicks at the ground again. "I ain't the best at this, alright. Yer brother came at me, threatened bits I'd rather keep, and-" The cowboy snarls ripping his hat off his head and ruffling his hair, pulling at the brown locks in frustration. His heel digs at the ground, the spur jingling. "It's the same ol' shit. Ain't nothin' changed, always on my case and lookin' down on me like I'm dirt; like he's better'n me. Told me I oughta apologize."

The archer bristles. He doesn't need Genji to fight his battles for him.

"Told him to go fuck himself," McCree continues. "Stick his nose in his own business."

"And yet you show up at my door." Hanzo snaps. "To apologize, though you have yet to do such."

Scowling angrily, McCree reaches into a bag he has slung over his shoulder, the strap hidden beneath his serape. "Told ya, I ain't the best at it. Hell, I'm not even sure I wanna apologize, was still thinkin' about it when you opened the door." He blindly gropes around, searching for something within. "Part of me still wants to knock yer teeth in, but that'll just get my hide chewed somethin' awful."

McCree produces a glass bottle, halfway filled with amber liquid. The label is scratched away, the edges curled as though someone attempted to peel it. He wrings his leather clad hand around the neck of the bottle, his thumb pressing against the top lip, applying pressure until his thumb slips upward where he presses it against the cork.

With a small flourish, McCree regrasps the bottle, extending it toward Hanzo who eyes the offering. “I ain’t gonna poison ya.” He rolls his eyes with a huff.

“You were just considering punching me again, so forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”

“Suit yourself.” The gunslinger pulls the cork out with a forceful pop and brings the bottle to his lips. McCree tilts his head back, exposing the long expanse of his neck, and takes a hearty swig. He smacks his lips with satisfaction as he pulls off, catching stray droplets of alcohol with a swipe of his tongue. Shaking the bottle and grinning, McCree taunts the archer. “See. Perfectly fine.”

Hanzo considers the situation carefully. It was made abundantly clear that McCree dislikes him, quite possibly even hates him.

McCree takes his silence as rejection and bristles, jamming the cork back in the bottle. “Fuckin’- fine. I get it.” He grumbles stalking away.

In the echoes of his retreating footsteps, Hanzo hears his earlier spiel.

_‘Like he’s better’n me.’_

All at once, this new behavior of McCree’s slides into place.

Hanzo has yet to belittle him.

Through their scuffle in the alley, their punches on the tarmac, Hanzo has never raised himself above McCree. Hanzo called them similar, made it clear from the beginning that while they may be the lowest of the low, they are on equal footing.

“Wait.” Hanzo says, leaning out of his room to halt McCree, calling out to him.

McCree halts, turning to glare over his shoulder, defensive in the sting of rejection. “What?” He snaps, the bottle of alcohol bobbing at his side as he clenches his fist tighter around its neck.

Hanzo ducks back inside his room, smirking at the irritated rumble his action draws from McCree.

Half a minute later, the archer pops back out. He takes his time locking his door and joining McCree, smirking as his approach is watched. Hawk-like. Trust has yet to be earned between them.

“Relax,” Hanzo insists, laughing to himself when McCree does the exact opposite and draws away once he’s close. “I was just retrieving my cup.” He lifts up a small glass with waves etched into the clear sides. Once part of a set, Hanzo managed to nab the two remaining pieces from a nearby flea market. They were the first thing he’d bought for a permanent residence since leaving the clan behind.

McCree rolls his eyes and mutters an insult under his breath.

The cowboy leads him to far side of the watchpoint, down a sloping causeway and behind some buildings that likely once stored vehicles. Now, the area lays empty, a shaded home for gulls on the warmer days.

They settle on the ground behind one of the buildings closer to the water’s edge. The sun hangs behind him, casting the two men in dark shadows and keeping them from being noticed. As if anyone else on the island would have reason to venture out this far. Even by Hanzo’s standards, this destination is fairly obscure.

In an almost cliche scene, their view is that of the ocean. The water isn’t so far down at this point. They must be at a lower altitude than the main hub.

McCree pulls out the cork once more with his teeth, spitting it off to the side. It’s a clear sign he intends to do away with the whole bottle before they leave. He drinks in great gulps, hardly savoring the taste.

He reaches out and takes Hanzo’s glass in hand. When the archer scowls, McCree grins. “Relax,” He parrots Hanzo’s earlier coo. “Just fillin’ ya up.”

Hanzo is handed a half full glass and without anything more, they drink.

The amber liquid burns, and it must be cheap because Hanzo can’t decipher if it’s whiskey or tequila or some kind of horrible, frankenstein combination. But the alcohol is good, satisfying, and the aftertaste isn’t entirely unbearable.

He considers his company; McCree, rude and angry.

“Do you always drink with people you attack?” Hanzo asks near the end of his second glass.

“You always accept drinks from folk that’ve attacked ya?”

Hanzo glowers at McCree from the corner of his eye.

“‘Sides, ain’t like you didn’t deserve it.”

“Perhaps.”

McCree slumps forward. “An’ I made a promise.” He takes a hefty swig of the alcohol - Hanzo’s yet to identify what it is.

“A promise to punch me?”

The cowboy grunts an affirmative. “Told your brother I’d clock whoever fucked ‘im up.”

Hanzo frowns into his drink, brows furrowed in confusion. “I was not under the impression that you two were close.” It certainly hadn’t seemed that way with McCree’s tirade about being threatened by Genji. And, come to think of it, Genji had hardly even acknowledged McCree’s presence when Hanzo managed to drag the other man to Gibraltar.

“We ain’t. Genji thought I was dirt - treated me like it.” McCree looks down the neck of his bottle. “But the shit loved his booze and I had plenty of it. He liked to forget all the pain and grief, an’ I wasn’t about to stop ‘im. Not when I was doin’ the exact same thing. Sometimes, though, it’d just make it worse.”

The archer closes his eyes and breathes deep.

“Used to wind up rantin’ about how he was gonna kill you. Even had several plans all laid out. He wanted to you to suffer.”

Hanzo looks sharply at McCree, finding the man staring back at him intensely. He wants Hanzo to pay close attention.

“About a week before I left, he tried to end it all. I hated Genji then, still kinda do, but when he started cryin’ about how no one cared how _much_ he was hurtin’. I know how that feels. So I promised him that I would care. It was the only way to calm ‘im down. Promised that if I ever met you, I’d make you bleed.”

“And you did not consider, given evidence of what I can do to a man, that it might be a stupid promise to keep?”

McCree chuckles and shrugs. “Didn’t rightly think I’d ever meet ya. Was willin’ to say anything to keep ‘im from pitchin’ himself onto the rocks.” He sighs. “An’ I always keep my promises.”

“‘Always’. Such a definite word,” Hanzo remarks, going for another drink, only to find his glass empty.

“Always. I didn’t once - one of my many regrets. So our whole,” McCree gestures between them with the bottle, spilling some of the amber liquid onto his serape. He frowns at the wet spot, but continues. “So it ain’t nothin’ personal.”

Hanzo holds his empty glass out, waiting for McCree to refill it before responding. “I would say it was very personal- oh.” He stares at his companion. “Is that your apology?”

“Don't know how many times I gotta say I ain't good at this ‘fore you start believin’ me.” McCree snaps.

To his credit, Hanzo tries, and desperately so, to keep from laughing. But he’s been loosened by drink and the flushed scowl McCree sports is just too much.

He breaks and the sudden force of his guffaw makes him choke on his own spit. Laughing and sputtering, Hanzo wipes away the tears that blur his vision. “That is-” Hanzo wheezes. “That is pathetic.”

McCree curls his lip at him. “Shut the fuck up, Shimada.”

“It is true.” The archer snickers. “I have seen sociopaths give more genuine sounding apologies.”

With a violent shove, McCree knocks the glass from Hanzo’s hand, sending it skidding across the ground. The contents spill as the cup rolls to the edge, teetering precariously. The two men hold their breath for one long second.

The glass tips.

And falls.

The shatter is barely heard over the waves against the rocks below.

“My glass.”

“That’s a waste of good hooch.”

Hanzo levels the cowboy with a glare, snatching the bottle from his hand. As he rises, he takes a long drink straight from the source.

McCree reaches for the liquor, scowling fiercely when Hanzo pulls it out of his range. “That’s _my_ booze.”

“I am aware.” Hanzo says before draining more from the bottle. “I will consider it repayment for _my_ glass.” He smiles with too much teeth and not enough kindness, daring his companion to challenge him.

He’ll never admit to the shock of excitement that lances through him when McCree returns his nasty grin.

“Then I’ll take it as you acceptin’ my apology.”

Hanzo hums, appraising his pilfered bottle. McCree is abrasive and enigmatic, but Hanzo appreciates his honesty. There’s also something to be said about the punch. A promise fulfilled rather than judgement brought. He’s yet to cast Hanzo as a monster in the world, just an asshole.

“You may have to apologize again next week.”

McCree looks shocked, and Hanzo’s willing to bet, with what little he’s learned about the man thus far, that this is new. Close to no one has willingly asked for McCree’s company.

The cowboy’s expression morphs to a strange mesh of excitement and apprehension. “You a fan of fruity apologies?”

“I prefer sweet, but I can be persuaded with the right amount of begging.”

“I’ll have ya hooked in two shots. I promise ya that,” McCree guarantees.

Taking his leave, Hanzo calls over his shoulder. “Do not make promises you cannot keep, cowboy.”

Faintly, he hears: “Never do, Shimada.”


	3. Rue

His father loved flowers.

There were many days after the death of his second wife that Sojiro would spend in his garden. It was common for Hanzo to stumble upon his father talking to the blooms. There were several types of flowers in the garden, a variety of representation of long dead ancestors. The morning glories and the cosmos where the ones Sojiro spoke to most- his first and second wives.

When the weather became frigid, his father would send out servants to assure the flowers were covered.

He tried to tried to teach his sons the language of the flowers; the pure chrysanthemums, the prideful amaryllis, and the loyal iris.

But neither could be bothered. Genji was more concerned about his high score at the arcade and Hanzo, well, looking back he would have called himself jealous.

He strived to be that perfect son, to have his father open up to him like he did the flowers, but the man held his tongue. Sojiro could not show an ounce of weakness, not even in the privacy of his own home, not even when he could see his sons struggling under the burdens of the clan. The watchful eyes of the elders were everywhere.

Except the garden.

Back then Hanzo couldn’t see that. All he knew was that he was isolated and that his father gave more attention to his flowers than his son borne from the woman he loved.

There are nights that Hanzo still wonders if the elders knew just how scorned Hanzo felt. They wrapped their spindly fingers around the lost son, poked and prodded until he was exactly what they wanted. He accepted it all because in the end, it was attention. He almost believed it was love.

It wasn’t a physical touch, and there was hardly any affection in the praise they crooned at him through sickly yellow teeth and crooked smiles. But the actions and the words were all for him.

He became everything they wanted; a selfish young man, greedily holding onto anything that acknowledged that he existed.

It was an early snow in winter, unexpected, that brought death into Hanzo’s family once more.

The flowers, shocked, withered and his twice-heartbroken father fell ill. The doctors said pneumonia. Hanzo was, and is still, certain that Sojiro just gave up.

Sojiro’s body wasn’t even cold before the elders thrust the mantle of clan leader upon him. Hanzo couldn’t complain. He’d been raised for this and taught everything he needed to know. This was his duty, his right and his burden.

In some cruel twist of irony the last peaceful moment between Genji and him, before it all fell apart, was the preparation of their father’s funeral. Neither of them knew what flowers to fold into his hands, what message to send Sojiro away with.

In the end, they buried Sojiro with their mothers. Morning glories and cosmos.

-

Hanzo slows his run to a brisk walk, raising his arms above his head for easier breathing. The burn of his muscles is pleasant, a satisfying thrum in his body that he finds comforting. The ache is an old friend, a simmering of pain that's pushed him to his greatest limits.

"Giving up already?" Tracer comes up quick from behind him. This feels like the hundredth time that she's lapped him. She turns around in front, doing a small jog backwards.

Hanzo shoots a withering glare her way. He does not give up.

She laughs, chirping a quick "Suit yourself!" before taking off again. She rounds the indoor track and approaches him again, running a few teasing circles around him.

With a mock salute, she bolts away and Hanzo watches her blink around the track- jumps in time, running several laps at once. He makes a note to eventually ask her about the mechanics of her chronal accelerator.

A bead of sweat slips from his hairline and down the side of his nose, tickling his skin. It’s an awful feeling and only serves to make him hyper aware of the pervasive stickiness of a good workout.

He rucks his hands under the bottom hem of his black tank top, fisting the fabric and dragging it up to wipe at his face. He’s thorough, making sure to mop up every inch to clear his face for the time being. It’s far from sanitary, but will suffice until he hits the shower.

Tracer gasps behind him.

On instinct, he whirls around, ready to assess the threat.

Her eyes are wide, pinned to his waistline.

Hands still tangled in his raised shirt, it takes a second to realize his error. In his haste to clean the sweat away, he bared his tattoo, and Tracer had been fast enough to catch up behind him..

Tracer's eyes dart to his, meeting briefly before settling back at his waist. She cranes her neck, tries to see it again, every bit as curious as one would expect.

Hanzo turns away, protective of the flowers. They're a secret, a well worn puzzle that he's yet to figure out and pride dictates that he solves their meaning on his own before the world sees them.

"They’re gorgeous." Tracer says, her voice quieted from her earlier outburst. Despite being alone in the large room, her voice carries and Hanzo is thankful that she doesn’t continue to yell. "I didn't know you had a-"

"It is recent,” he cuts her off, pulling his shirt down. He tugs at the fabric, as though he if covered up the flowers enough, Tracer would forget what she saw. Hell, he's covered them up enough, ignored them enough, that he sometimes forgets they exist.

Right up until he catches a glimpse of them, a reminder that someone out there is forever a part of his life and he can’t cut them out.

"So who's the lucky sod?" Tracer chirps, trailing after him as he heads for the cooldown mats off to the side.

Hanzo sits, ignoring the urge to turn and defend himself when Tracer walks behind him. He has to remind himself that she means no harm, that they've done this countless times and not once has she ever given him reason to believe that she has ulterior motives.

He brings his feet together in front of him, holding them tighter to his body with his hands. "I do not know."

"Oh." The wind is taken out of her sails, but it does little to interrupt their routine. She drapes herself over his back, leaning into him and pressing forward, forcing him to bend.

As the seconds pass, his body eases into the new position, muscles relaxing and letting him lean forward ever so slightly. The stretch burns, but he knows that he'll be sore later if he doesn't do this properly.

Before, when he'd joined initially, he'd done the bare minimum. An arm across his chest, legs spread and touching his toes. He knew better, but he couldn't be bothered. Some days it left him horrendously sore, almost to where it was impossible to climb to vantage points.

Tracer was the first one to call him out on his behavior during training. "How are you supposed to have our backs if you can't even get up there!?" She asked loudly, uncaring of his shame. Or perhaps some part of her knew that his own shame would make him compliant- that he was unwilling to continue being wrong and a burden once everyone was aware.

He tried to take more care in his cooldowns, but the boredom and the silence ate at him in the worst ways, especially on the days after nightmares. He would rush through, let himself hurt and ache just to go somewhere else with noise or something to occupy his time.

There's no telling how, or if she knew what she was doing when she approached him again, a special kind of fury in her eyes. Overwatch is her family, and his carelessness was threatening that. She caught him after one of his runs, dragged him to the mats and stretched with him.

Her idle chatter filled the empty room, her laughter high and constant when regaling him with tales of the old days of Overwatch.

Eventually, he started sharing back. Stories from when he was a boy, some of his own follies, plenty of Genji's escapades. She never told his brother how much she knew of his younger days, but during simulations when the cyborg's back was turned, she'd gesture and mime any number of Genji's mishaps.

Hanzo's laughter at her antics only drew his brother's attention, allowing her to continue, creating a vicious cycle that left his abs sore from mirth.

The couples stretches were his idea. There was an ease to the thought of stretching together, allowing them to push each other in flexibility rather than remaining stagnant at what they believed to be their limits.

After spending so long without touch, first by choice, then by exile, her touch was a comfort. She was unafraid that he might bite, that a sword might grow from his hand of which he would cut her down with. As far as Tracer was concerned, he was a friend.

"When?" She asks, bringing him to the present.

Hanzo grunts, leaning further down, bowing his head to the floor. "In Dorado, when I retrieved McCree."

Her hands find purchase on his rising knees, pressing them down and making his inner thighs burn. Every movement is slow, careful not to press too hard or too fast.

"I ran into several people while pursuing him."

Tracer whistles, pitying. He hates it. "So it could be anyone."

"Yes." Anyone. A tourist, a local. Anyone there, anyone he brushed against as he ran, anyone who grabbed at him as he collided with the old man or as he snarled at the young woman. Potential soulmates.

"Y'know, Em loves flowers." Tracer says, "She knows the language of 'em and everything." As Hanzo folds over entirely, relaxed save for the jumping burn on his inner thighs, Tracer props her head on her hand, her elbow braced on the center of his back. "She's been trying to convince me to get another one with her."

"It may be hard to outdo your recent ones."

He doesn't have to see her face to know Tracer is flushing.

Her tattoo, a long vine that starts at her right ribs and travels down to her ankle, bare aside from five vibrant red roses near the bottom. She complains half-heartedly about the cheesiness of it, but just this past year, when she'd spent an anniversary with her soulmate, she'd come back and readily showed off the new, fifth blossom.

If Tracer's tales are to be believed, Emily has a matching one on the same side, purple violets, that perfectly intertwine with Tracer's. When shared, the two vines mesh together beautifully, complimenting the other, though no one has seen that yet.

Part of Hanzo is convinced that Tracer hides it when it happens, an intimate moment inked onto her skin.

It's understandable, really. While shared tattoos are commonplace, purposely getting tattoos with a soulmate, and ones that complete the other at that, is far more than just an announcement of soulmates. It's a promise, as good as a wedding ring, but closer to the heart.

"Anyways," She gently lifts off of his back, letting Hanzo rise with a deep inhale. "If you're cool with it, I bet Em would love to take a look see. Might even be able to tell you what all's goin' on there."

"I will consider it." Hanzo replies. But in complete honesty, he doesn't believe he will.

-

Homesickness comes with the territory of leaving one’s entire life behind- of this fact, Hanzo knows. He knows it in the way the color pink reminds him of the synthetic cherry blossoms, and in the stab he feels in his chest when he recalls the beautiful view from his bedroom.

There really is nothing comparable to the overlook of the master suite in Shimada Castle. Even the crisp, high definition image from Google Earth can’t quite capture the feeling. He cannot hear the birds and he can’t feel the cool mountain air on his face, only tempered into warmth by the rising sun.

Normally, Hanzo is able to ignore such melancholy thoughts, especially after years of being away.

But there had been a final strike which drove the wishing and wanting and aching straight into his heart. There, it beats painfully, hoping to one day go home.

Despite two years with Overwatch, Hanzo’s alcohol stash is always delivered to him by whoever runs for groceries.

He isn’t picky - he’d tried to be when he first left Hanamura, but that only let him wallow so deep for so long, and thus he’s learned to accept whatever booze he can guzzle down. His only requirements were good taste, and a decent alcohol content.

So for the first time, he’d ventured to the mainland on his own.

It was a special trip. He’d hoped to procure his favorite brand of shōchū and bring it to share with McCree on their next night drinking.

Since the first time, the rarely seen cowboy had sought him out roughly three times a week for drinking. McCree always brought some unnamable liquid in a bottle with a missing label, but it was always enough to buzz them both into a pleasant state. Sometimes they spoke about nothing in particular, sometimes they argued, and sometimes they were quiet, two men enjoying a good drink and company that understood.

Not once did McCree pry about his demons, and in reciprocation, Hanzo never dug deeper about those missing and redacted pages in McCree’s file.

Perhaps it was a testament to how much he enjoyed the other man’s company, or maybe he just wanted to prove to McCree that there were better things out there than that questionable swill he brought about. Either way, Hanzo was excited to show McCree, what he believed to be, one of the finest drinks from his homeland.

Only to find that the liquor store did not carry it. The only thing on their shelves and all that they could order, was some cheap Americanized version of sake that they had shipped in every other month. Shōchū, or even Japanese made sake, apparently wasn’t popular enough in Gibraltar to warrant going for the good stuff.

And oh, it was like a punch to his chest, taking the wind out of him and making him long for home. He wanted the food, the smells, and the familiar ground beneath his feet.

Which was how he finds himself sitting in the small makeshift kitchen with a bottle of cheap, bottom shelf, furthest-from-the-door, vodka. If it can even be called that - it tastes more like nail polish remover.

He pours himself another shot, throwing it back and clicking the arrow to go further into the Shimada Castle. He’s fortunate that in his absence, and after he absconded with most of the money from his family, they’re forced to open their doors for tourists.

They have to make a legitimate income somewhere, now that the inherited money is gone and there are international police forces just waiting for a monetary slip-up. It’s all they would need to get into the sanctum of the estate, dig a little deeper and find everything. The lies, the betrayal, the blood.

The camera leads him down familiar paths, under wooden archways and around small shaded areas where he remembers studying as a boy. Despite the rigid schedule, the demand for perfection, even the clan understood that the outdoor air was good for him.

It gave him the illusion of freedom. After all, how could he have been a prisoner when he was allowed outside.

Hanzo swallows thickly as he directs the camera to the one place he remembers real freedom within the castle.

Even after Sojiro’s death, the garden remained. With the stress of the clan upon his shoulders, Hanzo finally understood why his father loved being there so much. It provided peace and quiet.

Later, he will blame it on the homesickness, but his tattoo burns and he wonders if maybe, just maybe, there are some matching flowers within his father’s garden. He wonders, if Sojiro could have known, in the all-seeing way that fathers always have, that Hanzo would one day bear plants along his skin. He might have foreseen that Hanzo, after ages of trials both put upon him by others and self inflicted, would find a bond.

A sort of giddiness wells up in his chest- if the flowers match, it narrows things down. His father was well versed in the Japanese language of the flowers, and only grew the messages he wanted and later attempted to teach to his sons. Hanzo’s soulmate will know this language too, surely. With the variety in the tattoo, there’s little doubt that there is some meaning behind it all.

But fate is cruel, a sentiment repeated over and over in Hanzo’s life. To be head of a clan he was born to lead, only to escape it and leave it in ruins. To mourn a brother he murdered, only to discover Genji was still alive years later.

To go in search of his father’s garden, to perhaps find some answers about his soulmate and to ease some of the homesickness that settled in his gut with the vodka, only to find it barren. Stripped of what was once lush and green.

All that remains is packed dirt, dry and uncared for, with crushed cigarette butts scattered about.

Hanzo’s vision swims, sorrow and anger bubbling up in his chest so tightly that he finds it hard to breathe. His body shakes, the dragons against his arms writhe in displeasure- it isn’t just his family that had been disrespected. His ancestors had bonds with the dragons too, their lives forever intertwined, spirits bonded like soulmates.

With the destruction of Sojiro’s garden, the dragons have been _insulted_.

It’s just his luck that McCree takes that moment to appear, an unmarked bottle of something dubious and alcoholic in his grip.

He catches sight of Hanzo and freezes - both of them like deer in headlights.

Hanzo knows how he looks, disheveled with a half empty bottle of nail polish remover beside him. His eyes are red and rimmed with hot tears of anger, a scowl on his face with bared teeth at the screen because how dare they. How dare they erase his father’s memories, uproot his mother’s cosmos, disrespect his ancestors and all that they had meant to the family.

McCree takes stock of him with his calculating stare and Hanzo braces himself for pity. He prepares to snap and snarl and rebuff any coddling. He’s hurt, not weak. He expects apologies for things things that have nothing to do with the gunslinger.

But for as short of a time as he has known McCree, he should have learned by now that the cowboy rarely does as is expected of him.

With narrowed eyes, McCree dons his own scowl and stalks closer. “Ya got started without me.” He accuses, grabbing a chair of his own, dragging it over to Hanzo and pushing into his space. “Scootch.”

Hanzo hunkers down into his chair, a clear sign that he will not ‘scootch’. “Leave me.” He grumbles.

McCree clicks his tongue in disappointment, grabs the edge of his seat and dumps Hanzo onto the floor in an unceremonial, drunken sprawl of limbs. As the archer scrambles up, McCree knocks the chairs to the side so that the screen is equally shared. Not paying Hanzo any mind, he settles in, his arm slung across the backs of both chairs.

The cowboy opens his drink, taking a long pull before he glances at his companion. “You gonna get over here and show me around?” He taunts, “Or am I gonna have to pull out a translator and embarrass us both?”

Hanzo reclaims his own seat, reaching for the drink and grunting in annoyance when it’s pulled out of his reach.

McCree tuts at him, taking another swig. “I gotta do some catchin’ up.” He looks at the screen, “Hanamura, huh? Been there once, did my misdeeds and moved on. Didn’t get to do much sight seein’.”

When Hanzo does nothing but stare blankly at the screen, still centered on what remains of his father’s garden, McCree scoffs and rolls his eyes. He elbows rudely at Hanzo, zooming out and clicking wildly down streets until he loses himself somewhere in Hanamura. Blissfully, the Shimada estate is in the distance and Hanzo slowly focuses back in.

He rubs at his eyes with the back of his wrist and swats at McCree with his other hand. For a second, he takes in where the camera points. Some buildings are familiar still but scrawled Japanese on a wall tells him exactly where they’ve landed.

Laughter trickles from him, starting light in his chest and growing until he’s crying.

McCree looks at him like he’s grown a second head, eyes darting to the bottle of cheap vodka. It holds no answers to any questions he might have.

It takes a moment for Hanzo to catch his breath, and still he laughs when he says, “This is the site of one of Hanamura’s most brutal murders.” He clicks down into an alleyway and jams his finger drunkenly against the screen. The stones are still stained with blood, though it’s washed away as much as it can with time. The alley is hardly traversed; the city had likely decided it was not worth replacing the stone if there were no complaints.

“No shit?” McCree sounds interested. Of course he’d be into hearing these kinds of tales, Hanzo enjoys them too and this one is among his favorites. “What happened?”

Hanzo leans onto the table with a lofty sigh, sliding forward with his lack of coordination. “A man beat his wife to death in front of their child.”

McCree rears back. “That ain’t-” He looks away from the screen, hunched over and appearing to be ill. “Christ, that’s fucked.”

The archer hums in agreement. “The child paid an assassin to kill the man.” He reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, opening it on the table between them. In the place where a photo of a loved one would go, a collectible trading card resides. Holographic, limited edition. Hanzo begins laughing again. “I did it. The child,” He smiles, brushing his thumb over the clear protector. “Paid me with this. So I made sure the man suffered greatly.”

His companion is quiet, taking a long drink. “Good.” He sneers.

“I thought so as well.” He directs the camera out of the alley, back to the scribbled on the wall. He traces underneath the text with a finger, smudging the screen with little care. “ _Hanzo is watching from the shadows._ ” He whispers aloud, frowns. “I think I got caught.”

McCree chuckles beside him, pushes him over more gently this time. “You wanna see caught? Here.”

Despite being drunk, there is enough clarity within Hanzo realize that McCree doesn’t type in a place. It’s not a city, not a street. He types in precise coordinates.

The screen is hovering over what appears to be a long stretch of deserted desert road in the States somewhere. Leaning back in his chair, the cowboy motions Hanzo forward. “Go ahead, zoom on in.”

Hanzo scrabbles for the mouse, first accidentally bumping the scroll wheel in the wrong direction before he pushes it forward. Closer and closer, he begins to pick out a shape casting a shadow against the dirt. The camera swoops in and suddenly, there is a man on the side of the road.

Loud and proud, McCree stands with that endearingly nasty smirk on his face, middle fingers raised high to camera car passing by and mapping the area. He shows no fear at being seen, and looks as though he’d just crawled across the desert for days, just to meet the car there and get his picture taken.

“It gets better.” McCree says, pulling open a new tab and typing keywords into the search.

Headlines flash across the screen.

_‘Wanted Vigilante Jesse McCree Spotted by Mapping Camera’_

_‘Train Robber Jesse McCree Seen-’_

_‘Jesse McCree Present in-’_

And so many others. All of them are large warnings, urging the public to be aware of McCree’s presence.

“Had to lay low for a while. Was worth it, though.”

Hanzo stares at him. He looks cleaner, especially with far less dirt on him. Yet, even though his beard is trimmed and his clothes are newer, he looks so similar to how he had on the map. He looks like his Wanted poster.

In a moment of what Hanzo’s drunk mind claims is genius, he stumbles to his feet. Unsteady, he nearly falls if not for McCree’s hand quickly shooting out to give him something to brace himself with. “Thank you,” Hanzo mumbles and heads for one of the cupboards.

He rifles through a few before he hears McCree come up behind him. The notification is intentional and appreciated. They both know how to sneak up on someone, but are aware that perhaps they aren’t the kinds of people who need to be startled. That can only end badly.

“They are here somewhere.” Hanzo grumbles, starting to dig into another cupboard.

McCree opens one as well, preemptively. “What?”

“Kitchen shears.” The archer makes a coo of happiness when he finds them, whirling around and facing his curious companion. “We must trim you more. You are too recognizable.”

Had he not been drunk, or had McCree been drunker, Hanzo might have landed his lurch at the cowboy. As it is, however, he misses, knocking into McCree’s side and sailing for the counter behind him. The edge of the surface hits his stomach, knocking a small ‘oof’ and a laugh out of him.

“Now hold on,” McCree says, backing away when Hanzo turns. It’s a mistake, one that only gives the archer more room to maneuver and get him down.

Between Hanzo’s stumbling steps and McCree somewhere near tipsy, they aren’t as coordinated as they’d like to be and go crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs. The shears go skittering across the floor as they collide with the ground.

Reason flies out the window. They are two men used to fighting, unused to anyone being in their space. Throwing alcohol into the mix, they cannot seem to pull it together enough to separate quickly. The archer winds up sitting on McCree’s stomach and diaphragm, slowly depriving the cowboy of air.

Hanzo grasps McCree’s face, pulling meanly at his sideburns and using the heels of his palms to squish the cowboy’s cheeks together. He laughs at the indignant glare he receives in return for the action, the fishlips severely diminishing the scathing look. The more he looks at McCree, the more he laughs until Hanzo is howling, his laughter more of a gruff scream than anything else.

Taking the opportunity, McCree flips them. He pins Hanzo’s legs with his own and rips the archer’s hands from his face, holding them to the ground beside Hanzo’s head. The contrasting metal and leather glove feel weird and Hanzo struggles in an attempt to adjust to the feeling.

McCree snarls, worked up and angry.

The fire ignites behind his eyes, that lust for roughness and violence. He’s a bear trap, ready to snap if Hanzo should take one more misstep.

Hanzo’s mouth opens and shuts, searching for how to address this situation. McCree is his friend, or close to it. And he likes to believe that in turn, McCree sees him as a friend.

He misses fighting for the sake of fighting. While Overwatch’s deeds are good in the grand scheme of things, they are tame. Escort here, defend this package, scout this area. So rarely does Hanzo get to engage the enemy up close and personal.

The words fail to reach him- he doesn’t know how to tell McCree that it’s alright to fight with him. That getting into a good scrap, no holds barred, is exactly someething Hanzo desires too.

“What the- McCree!”

Suddenly the weight atop him is gone, the cowboy knocked aside with a hefty grunt that turns into a roar of anger. Sitting up slowly, Hanzo finds his brother restraining McCree, wrenching his arm behind his back and digging sharp heels into the sharpshooter. McCree is on his knees, bent over until his face presses against the floor and Genji’s hold over him prevents him from getting up.

“You fucker,” Genji hisses. “I warned you.”

Wobbling, Hanzo stands and approaches the two men. He can see the outright fury in McCree’s expression. It isn’t the same look he gives Hanzo when they roughhouse. “Genji, stop.” Hanzo demands, leaning all of his weight on his brother.

Genji bats his hand away. “I told him to leave you alone.”

“Get off!” McCree howls, bucking for all he’s worth to dislodge the cyborg. Genji rolls with the movement, tweaking McCree’s arm further.

His friend’s bitten off cry of pain spurs Hanzo into action. He surges against his brother, pushing Genji away from McCree, and puts himself between the two of them. “Leave.” Hanzo demands.

McCree stays on the ground, but he quickly tucks his arm underneath his body.. Hanzo catches the faint shake of his shoulders- Jesse is protecting his last arm from further harm.

Hanzo scowls at Genji who remains, staring at McCree and at the ready to pounce back on the cowboy. “I said leave!” He snaps, giving his brother a shove, a hint to get away before things get messy.

“He-”

“We are drinking together.” He grits out. “Leave, so I may tend to my _friend_.” McCree hiccups from the floor but says nothing.

Genji shoots the gunslinger one more look before straightening his back, lifting his chin as if to preserve some dignity after being chased out of the room by his brother. Chastised like a boy.

Once he’s gone, Hanzo relaxes, the drunken haze only half there after the encounter. He leaves McCree to collect himself, giving the man the same courtesy as he showed Hanzo earlier. Hanzo doesn’t mention the crying, the shaking, nor does he attempt to coddle. McCree just needs a moment- people like them don’t want anyone else to realize there’s a chip in their defenses.

He retrieves the shears from the ground, but moving them to the counter is as far as he gets in cleaning them up. Hanzo returns to the computer, shutting it down. Quietly, well, as quiet as a buzz will let him be, he rights the room.

Eventually all that’s left are the lights.

Still, McCree is on the floor.

Hanzo huffs and pads over, popping into a crouch beside the large man’s huddled form. “I am heading back to my quarters, McCree.”

“Alright.” The cowboy replies, words muffled. “I’ll get the lights when I leave.”

“Drinks are on me next time.”

Finally, the other man peeks up at him. His eye is red, but dry. He must be on the tail end of whatever he’s going through. “I’ll hold ya to that, Shimada.”

“And,” Hanzo starts and instantly McCree reburies his face, back tensing. Hanzo knows that feeling, preparing to be treated as weak. “Thank you for showing me the maps. It was enjoyable.” He takes a risk, places his hand on the cowboy’s back.

To his delight, McCree melts under the touch.

“It helped.”

And with that, Hanzo leaves. An evening cut short, but memorable all the same.

-

_“You’re bein’ followed.”_

Hanzo tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear, using the movement to disguise the press of his comm at his ear. “I thought that was the point, was it not?” He mutters, moving along the predetermined path.

He can practically hear McCree roll his eyes over the line. _“Just wanted ya to be aware.”_

“I am plenty aware.”

In truth, Hanzo is far from paying attention.

Back in Dorado, the roads are less crowded than they had been when he’d picked up McCree. Hanzo keeps an eye out for people who might be familiar, for someone who may look bereft at missing such a large piece of art from their body.

His tattoo practically throbs against his skin, the lines are white hot reminders that here is where he ran into the person he’s been bonded to for life. Part of him wants to tear his jacket off and parade around, wait until someone recognizes it and claims it- claims him.

He’s already decided that he does not want the bond of his soulmate to be one of ownership. Too often in his clan, Hanzo was witness to men using their link as a means of lording power over their significant other. Detestable.

No, Hanzo already knows he will be equal with his soulmate.

But he wants someone to admit that they desire him. That they will take him and all his flaws and find out what works best between them.

The tattoo and all thoughts about the flowers distract him so thoroughly that he, in fact, did not catch on to his pursuers. He mentally thanks McCree for having his back.

“I did not take you for a sniper.” Hanzo converses, heading further away from the market. While it’s not nearly as busy as before, he would still prefer to have his confrontations away from civilians.

McCree chuckles. _“Ana trained me.”_ He says, with no inkling that Hanzo already knows how he came under the old soldier’s tutelage. _“Taught me to shoot proper and then put me up in a perch.”_

Hanzo wonders if the younger McCree was more comfortable there, squirreled away and watching, much like he’d done before approaching Ana. He thinks about the small hideaway she mentioned that McCree had. He can just imagine on days when things felt wrong, the youth tucked away in his hovel on high, keeping his sights on anyone who came in range, paranoid and self preserving. Vigilant without relent.

Strangely, Hanzo isn’t put off in the slightest at knowing that McCree has his scope trained on him. It feels comforting, in a way.

 _“Three on your six.”_ McCree informs him. _“Two more about a minute inbound from the north. 30 seconds if they hear screaming.”_

Hanzo smirks to himself. “Then I should not let them scream.” He heads down an alley, picking out his tail when they speed up to keep him within their sight.

 _“Shimada, wait, I can’t-”_ Jesse snarls over the comm. _“Fuck! I lost sight on ya.”_

The archer shrugs to himself and turns around to face his would be assailants. Quickly he incapacitates one, pulls a knife from his boot and slashes one’s throat. The third attacked ends up with a knife deep in their gut and _that_ is the one that screams.

Quicker than he anticipated, the new men are on him. They trade blows, Hanzo’s face gets pressed against a brick wall and scraped down with force. The burn does nothing but fuel him on until they too, join their dying and unconscious comrades on the ground.

He roots around- they are low level Los Muertos. They have no intel that they are looking for.

Hanzo activates his comm. “McCree?”

The silence on the other end begins to chill his blood, the warmth from the fight leaving him entirely.

He tries again. “McCree are you there?”

Quickly he thinks- there was no gunfire during his scuffle, so it’s unlikely that another sniper got the upperhand on McCree, taking him out.

Hanzo jogs out of the alley, peering up at the rooftop that was Jesse’s last known location-

“Jesse!” The scream is ripped from his throat as he sees the cowboy hanging off the edge of the hotel he’d been perched on. There are a few figures above him, but Hanzo can’t make them out. There is no mistaking how violently the red serape flies from up high.

_“Hey, Hanzo?”_

Hanzo breaks into a run, he has to get up there and help, but he’s so far away. “Hold on, I am coming!” He shouts, pushing through people, jumping over market stalls to get there faster. He can’t fall, he can’t fall. His heart pounds thunderously and if McCree’s plummet doesn’t break it, he’s keen on ripping it out of his own chest with how much it hurts.

Softer, pleading. _“Hanzo?”_

“Shut up!” He barks in reply. “Just hold on!”

McCree chuckles, deep and _lovely_.

Hanzo doesn’t want that to be the last thing he hears from his friend. He’s so close, just down the street. He can see when McCreee reaches up to talk into his comm.

He can’t just watch this happen.

Hanzo yanks his bag from his back, unfolding the bow hidden within. It’s no stormbow, but it will do in a pinch. He digs his nails into the seam of his jacket, right at his shoulder, the threads purposely weakened so that he’s able to tear it away if the need arises.

And that need has arisen.

Exposed, the ink begins to drip from his arm.

Aiming an arrow above McCree where the assailants crowd, ready to shoot him if he doesn’t fall of his own accord, the blue dragon peels from his arm.

Against his skin, he can feel it brush the flowers on it’s way across his body, the other dragon crawls from his opposite arm. The twins slough off of his flesh, the dark blue turning thick and black as it forms coils around him.

Vicious maws open wide, dripping and waiting to feed, to leave their marks upon the souls they devour.

Hanzo feels their separation from his body acutely, uncomfortably. It doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t pleasant.

Poised to strike, to fly where he directs him, the two dragons of ink let out gurgling roars, splattering black against the ground like spittle in a drunk man’s rage.

He lets loose the arrow and they follow.

With horror, he realizes that McCree will be in their path. He prays to anyone listening that his friend makes it out alive, that he holds steady until Hanzo can get up to him. Hanzo closes his eyes and he hopes, he knows it is childish to wish and dream, but he wants McCree to withstand the force that the dragons will bring upon him.

_“Wanna see a cool trick?”_

The world halts around him, Hanzo can only snap his eyes open and gaze up to where his dragons coil and fight the men who were so ready to send McCree to his death. The only evidence that points to the dragons having passed over the cowboy is a black smear across his serape and face- still Jesse’s grin beams through the dark.

With a shaking hand pressed to his ear, Hanzo responds. “What?”

_“Get ready to run. I think some of ‘em are waitin’ at the bottom for me.”_

He watches with horror as Jesse McCree lets go of the ledge he’s been hanging onto.

And plummets.

Suddenly, his metal hand digs into the brickwork, ripping out several blocks as he descends, showing no signs of slowing. McCree digs his heels into the wall, and it occurs to Hanzo that the boots he wears may have thick heels by design. Brakes.

With an impressive flourish, McCree eventually slows near the bottom, just enough that when he springs off the wall, he tucks and rolls into the rest of his fall.

Despite the debris, against the impossibility of falling nearly ten stories like that without a scratch, McCree comes out of the tumble smoothly and sprints toward him.

It’s not the feat which leaves Hanzo stunned, staring star-struck at the sprinting cowboy. Though impressive and a bit shocking to witness for the first time, he’s slowly beginning to expect such stunts from McCree. There’s always a surprise with him.

No, what leaves Hanzo dazed and confused is the unadulterated _joy_ on McCree’s face as he runs. A hand on his hat to keep it on his head and his other outstretched to grab Hanzo’s wrist, he looks happy. Like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than in the middle of a fight.

True to his word, a few assailants come dashing out of the building, but Hanzo hardly gets a glimpse at them before he’s being yanked away. Pulled along with McCree’s strength and speed.

After he gets his feet underneath him, after he stops staring in awe at that smile which surely must be made of sunshine and all that is _good_ , he keeps up. He runs side by side with McCree, but the gloved hand never leaves his wrist, as if afraid he’ll fall behind and be lost.

The cowboy must know this area well, for he takes twists and turns that leave even Hanzo lost for a few moments until they find a small corner behind a shop where they can stop.

McCree leans over, huffing and worn, but it doesn’t stop the peals of laughter that soon spring forth. He crumples, squatting and curling up with his arms tucked around his knees. His howls of laughter are muffled in the crook of his elbow, his shoulders shaking from the force.

It’s infectious; Hanzo is finding that just about everything McCree does, is as such.

Hanzo laughs, leaning back against the wall of the shop, closing his eyes and breathing. “It was-” He gasps. “It was just supposed to be recon.”

McCree snorts, an ugly sound, but it fits him. Everything rough and tumble does. “You’re the one who murdered folks.” He accuses with a chuckle.

The archer stares down at him, struck quiet because all he wants to do is hear that laughter more. He rarely sees his friend pleased enough for a genuine laugh, and never before has he seen him smile and come undone like so.

It doesn’t remove the furrow from between his pinched brows, or make him appear any younger like romance novels like to describe the troubled protagonist. Youthful in their happiness, old and haggard in their anger. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life.

But Hanzo will be damned if he doesn’t admit to that crooked smile and those half-closed eyes aren’t a work of art.

“I will not tell if you do not.” He offers slyly, grinning. After a beat he hold his hand down to the cowboy.

“Deal.”

The handshake seals it.

-

The news crews blow their cover. While their names are not plastered everywhere, nor is it linked to Overwatch, a brief exposé on the dead Los Muertos members rats them out.

Hanzo points out that anyone could have stabbed those goons in the alley way.

Morrison points out that the archer was the only one present who could have left those ink stains. He worked with Genji a few times, he knows what happens with their dragons.

The accusation makes him think of McCree’s grin, covered in black, alive after having the dragons pass over him. Joyous in the chaos of a fight. Hanzo doesn’t respond.

Their punishment is cleaning duty- menial but not the worst they could have gotten.

On their way out of the briefing room, McCree mutters under his breath about the _‘G.I. Joke’_ and Hanzo hurts himself with how violently the snort tears out of him. Coughing and sputtering in the hall, McCree pats his back and waits until he’s sure the archer isn’t going to die before heading off on his own.

In his own quarters, Hanzo finally has some time to think about the actions of the mission.

It was rash to attack the gang members in the alley. Dumb to break the line of sight on McCree, leaving them both exposed.

He risked both their lives for a selfish desire.

Hanzo knows he rushed the mission, hoped he’d then have time to slink about the city and listen in to the populace. Surely, if his soulmate was a resident, there’d be a rumor or two about someone losing a piece of artwork as big as his back. With so many flowers, there had to be a meaning behind them.

Scowling to himself, he pulls his shirt over his head. The dragons were returned to his skin, blue coils wrapped around his arms and shoulders. Twins, mirroring each other, their open maws against his wrists.

Both a burden and a blessing. A reminder of the life he left behind, and yet beautifully crafted weapons. On countless occasions, the dragons had saved his life, and since his joining of Overwatch, the lives of others.

Falling to sit on his bed with an ‘oof’, he peels a nanomesh boot off his right foot and the sock with it.

Despite the beautiful dragons on his arms and how much of his identity they are, his pride and joy are on his feet.

Right on top, a betta fish swims in a circle. He’d gotten them after leaving the clan, the first of the body modifications he’d gotten with no ties to his former life. There was little to no symbology for the yakuza when it came to the fish.

Hanzo thought they were beautiful, and they were fighters, often kept in glass cages much like he’d been.

Navy blue with red on the edges of its fins, its mate was colored the opposite. Deep red with blue on the edges. Both swimming in opposite directions, mirrored on his feet and keeping the balance on his body.

He wonders, if his dragons and his fish could talk, what would they have to say about the uneven flowers that bloom up his side. Off kilter, yet gorgeous in their own way.

Maybe, if he never found his soulmate, he’d get more on his other side, to match. To mourn the loss of what he could have had.

Removing his other boot and sock, his heart lurches.

The floor falls out from underneath him.

His stomach flips and he wants to retch.

His other betta fish is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it doesn't show up, here's the link to Omaano's piece for this chapter:  
> http://omaano.tumblr.com/post/172181758378/this-is-my-second-piece-far-more-sketchy-then


	4. Love Lies Bleeding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of minor/background character death.  
> Mental breakdown at the end of the chapter.

_‘Beauty in simplicity.’_

Such words had been uttered to Hanzo from a young age.

His father told him as much about his mother- a plain woman, of whom Sojiro had been absolutely enamoured with. Against the protests of the clan and despite her humble beginnings, Sojiro loved her. In privacy, when it was just Hanzo and his father, Sojiro would admit that he could never love anyone as much as he did her.

She had no tattoos to speak of, and never did the red dragon leave his father’s chest, but Sojiro would swear up and down that she was his soulmate. He was convinced that he was made for her. Not in the sense that she was nothing without Sojiro, but that he could only reach his full potential in life by being with her. So he gave her a son.

Later in life, Hanzo came to understand just how much his father had risked for his mother and he envied Sojiro’s conviction. To feel so strongly for someone he had no physical proof of a bond with, enough to go against the elders of the clan.

Some days he wonders if the clan feared Hanzo might embody his father’s strong will and set about caging him before he grew wings. Where Genji was the sparrowhawk, Hanzo was the tethered kite. Sent on hunts before being pulled back, put up on a shelf until he was needed again.

When he finally broke free, too little, too late, the first thing Hanzo did for himself was get a tattoo.

For so long he had wanted more ink on his skin, geometric designs of solid black, but it had been forbidden. It would have been most unbecoming of the young lord to have something so distasteful and without meaning on his skin.

It took years after Hanzo's leave, to come to terms that he didn't just have to want- he could obtain.

Which is why it surprised him that when he walked into the tattoo parlor, determined to leave there with something that looked nice and damn the meaning, he'd gotten betta fish. Fighting fish which were beautiful and while there was no hidden meaning behind some long winded tale of old, they meant the world to him.

He was a fighter, he was free and those fish upon his feet were the first things he'd done for himself because he _wanted to._ They were his freedom impressed upon his skin, a hidden reminder to himself that he could and would fight.

Hanzo feels the loss of the red one sharply.

Somewhere in Dorado, his soulmate has a new passenger on their skin and didn’t even bother to take the flowers back - he checked.

Despite the tattoos having no weight, despite the transfer of ink giving no physical sensation, he feels pain in his left side and his right feels heavy. He lists, both physically and mentally. He leans heavily to his right while his mind spins in circles.

Hanzo tries to recall who he ran into as he ran to save his friend. He can’t remember if any of the faces were familiar.

"Are you alright?"

The words snap Hanzo to the present. He’s on a bullet train, sitting across a small table from Doctor Zeigler. They are heading to Munich.

He nods, giving the woman his full attention. After all, his job here is to escort her to a medical conference. Hanzo volunteered to go with her out of the kindness of his heart, honestly, and has nothing to do with one of the guest speakers.

If Issac Ben-David is delving into the way geometry affects the human body and how the physical structure of certain genome sequences can make one more susceptible to receiving treatments or more resistant to them, and if Hanzo just so happens to read several of his journals, well, then that's all a coincidence.

Doctor Zeigler stares at him, scrutinizing him and finding nothing worth bringing up, she hums. The doctor rummages in her bag and pulls out a bar of chocolate. For a moment she is quiet until she laughs; the sound is almost inaudible, like she practiced such a sound so as to not disturb patients.

She peels a note off of the front and slides it to him.

In Genji's familiar scrawl: _'Enjoy your trip! Play nice! Please don't break my brother, Angela. P.S. If you share he might actually talk to you.'_

"It seems as though Genji is afraid we will bring harm to one another." She titters, peeling open the bar. She breaks off a piece, popping it into her mouth as she offers the open end toward Hanzo.

He takes a portion for himself, biting into the center of the square to get directly to the filling. Rich raspberry, smooth and syrupy. A little dribbles over his lip and he catches it with his finger, chuckling. "I am not sure why. We have been nothing but civil with each other." Though he's still convinced she tried to poison him on at least one occasion in the beginning.

"So far." She says, taking another piece. She doesn't offer him another, meeting his eyes. Her eyebrows furrow as she stares him down. "Genji told me about the other night. Fighting with McCree."

Hanzo scowls. "With a friend. Drunk, might I add. I was very drunk."

She hums affirmatively. " _McCree_ is one thing," She says his name with such disdain that Hanzo fears the cowboy may feel the sting of it back at the base. "But should you ever do such a thing to anyone else within Overwatch," Doctor Zeigler plucks out the last square, holding it out to him. "Let us just say I will be recommending that you use a steak for your next black eye."

"What-"

"Anyone." She snaps. "Do not misunderstand me. I think you are a fine man, but I have seen the _damage_ you can do. I will not piece together another agent."

She sets the last piece down on the table, an offering. Hanzo doesn’t take it.

A silence befalls them. Tense, but not intolerable. There were several moments in Hanzo's life where an enemy had attempted to use silence to break him, hoping the discomfort of the situation would make him talk, make him pliant and willing.

Yet, this is Doctor Zeigler. She is no enemy.

"Be careful around him." She speaks suddenly, turning her attention to the window. There isn't much of a view, the speed of the bullet train making everything pass by in a blur. She looks distant, remembering something from a past he knows little about.

Cautiously. "Who, Genji?" He almost laughs at the idea. When they were younger and their father bore the brunt of the clan's expectations, they would roughhouse. Hanzo was normally the one to come out of those scuffles with a bloody nose. Genji would have a few bruises and scratch marks, but he was hardy. Even before his enhanced body, careful was never something anyone had to be with Genji.

"McCree." She hisses.

Hanzo shifts in his seat. The cowboy is his friend, it feels strange - wrong, even - to talk about him with someone who obviously is not favorable toward him. Hanzo never speaks to Genji about his friendship with McCree, not even after their confrontation. No one appears to _want_ to talk about him, like he’s some dirty little secret that they keep tucked in a corner, forgotten until he could be used. A tool.

It doesn't sit right with Hanzo, having escaped that very situation.

"I have never known him to be kind."

Hanzo grunts. "It is not kindness I seek with Jesse."

Doctor Zeigler flashes him a look, one too quick for him to decipher. "He only looks out for himself. Don't mistake the bond you find at the bottom of a bottle to be anything more. If it means his life, he will let you fall."

"From my understanding," Hanzo leans back in his seat, arms crossed. "My friend knows when to have a heart and when to guard it."

"He-"

"Prevented my brother from killing himself over what I'd done." The words hurt to say, scratch his throat and wrap his heart up tight. He takes in a short breath, it's all he can manage. "For which he has my gratitude. I do not think it is becoming of either of us to judge him without first knowing him."

The doctor blusters, her face pinching tight. "I know him enough. I fixed more than one of his mistakes- agents with broken bones and bullet holes. He cannot be trusted."

Hanzo shakes his head. "I think the same could be said of me." He huffs, looking out the window as well, ending the discussion. Mostly. "For what it is worth," He waits until her reflection locks eyes with him. "You have my gratitude as well, for saving Genji."

The rest of the ride is in silence and despite the excitement of getting to listen to one of Doctor Ben-David's lectures in person, all Hanzo wants to do is return home. He wants McCree to stroll into the room with an unknown liquor and to drink their collective woes away. Pasts too painful to dwell on, but too important to forget the lessons of.

-

“Stop the car!”

Doctor Zeigler’s sudden shout makes Hanzo jump. He’s never heard her be quite so loud. In a flurry of German, she gets the driver to stop their cab. They’ve only just gotten off the bullet train, surely they haven’t reached the conference center yet.

Without a word, she climbs out of the car and stares down the street.

Following her lead, he sees the pillar of black smoke pouring off of a building. Spectators gather around it, victims are crying for all that they’re losing in the flames that lick out of the windows.

Doctor Zeigler ducks back into the cab, hands a hefty sum of cash and flies to the trunk. She pulls her bag from the popped trunk and run toward the disaster.

Hanzo does his best to catch up to her, but she’s got a head start.

Quickly, she’s in the thick of things, checking over soot covered civilians, speaking to them in a calming yet firm voice. The victims fall into her like men praying at the foot of the Madona. She is an angel, healing with her touch and her words, promising salvation.

An older woman runs up, frantic and speaking with tears falling down her wrinkled face.

In a second, Doctor Zeigler’s face falls to panic, eyes wide and glancing at the burning building. When she looks to Hanzo, he steps closer, beckoned.

“There are still-” She stops, shakes her head. Sorrowful, she takes the elderly woman’s hands in hers. “The authorities will help.” She repeats the sentiment in German and the older woman sinks to her knees in despair.

“Please,” She begs, her english heavily accented. “My son and his wife are all I have left.” The old woman turns to Hanzo, pulling her hands from Doctor Zeigler and grasping onto his. She tugs, desperate. “You must help. Please.”

The building creaks and groans, something inside causes a loud bang.

“He is only on the third floor. Not far.”

Hanzo looks to his travelling companion. She’s sternly looking at him, as if saying ‘don’t you dare’ but he needs to. For all the children his family harmed, for all the families torn apart because of the Shimada name, he has to make sure this one stays together.

He nods to the older woman and she smiles gratefully, kisses his knuckles with trembling lips and says something to him in German- he assumes a prayer with how she crosses her body after.

Doctor Zeigler is kind enough to not comment, instead delivering a stern nod before beginning to prepare for the possibility of a severe injuries. Not his own, but of the people.

Hanzo takes a deep breath of what he knows will be the cleanest air he’ll have until he’s done. He doesn’t take a moment to steel himself, he can’t when every second could cost the lives of the two stuck within the burning building.

As he runs inside, he doesn’t miss the strange parallel of his actions. A hero running inside a burning building to save civilians out of the kindness of his heart, and he snorts in a quiet bit of laughter as he finds the stairs.

He’s no hero. He knows this much, has accepted the cold hard truth of being the villain- albeit with an unexpected redemption arc. Novels always make it seem so lofty, that it takes one good deed to turn the hearts and minds of dangerous men.

His life reminds him that it is a process.

To make up for all he’s done, to prove that he no longer wishes to walk the path of destruction unto others, he must continue to make decisions. He must make tomorrow better so that men like him aren’t created from the ashes he leaves behind.

On the third floor, it suddenly occurs to him that he didn’t get a room number. He has no idea where the old woman’s son lives.

Many apartments are easy to disregard, their doors flung open and left as such in the haste to escape the burning building. He wonders how on earth the son remained inside the building, why he did not flee.

Up to code, the doors push inward and he worries little about a draft of fire being pulled into his face as he searches behind the closed doors. He worries less when he comes to realize that the fire is above him. It will travel upwards faster than it will down, but he remains cautious about it’s spreading and location.

Many of the doors open easy, unlocked during the exodus. Some are locked and he throws his weight against them, bruising his shoulder with how many times he breaks in.

Finally, just when he begins to think he won’t find the apartment, he busts into a door and finds a woman frantically crawling on the floor.

She looks up to him, wide eyes but thankful because there is help. She rises quickly and her hands work in a flurry that he can’t understand but knows there is meaning - sign language.

Hanzo taps his ear and she shakes her head. She cannot hear. But her eyes fall to his lips, staring, focused. Reading.

“Husband?” He says, articulate. Belatedly, when her face becomes stricken and she grabs onto him, she likely doesn’t know how to read lips in English. He doesn’t even bother to try with any other language- he doesn’t know German and he doesn’t know any languages of the surrounding countries.

She flaps at him, scared, desperate. Small whines escape her throat, words of her own that she doesn’t know how to give shape to. He can estimate that she’s been deaf her whole life. What few sounds manage to actually come out as words, are in German and are mumbled.

He doesn’t understand.

What he does understand, however, is what the creaking of the ceiling above them means. The fire is weakening the structure. It will collapse soon.

Hanzo rushes the woman, scooping her legs from underneath her and hefting her up. She shrieks and beats against his chest. She fights, especially when he reaches the threshold of the apartment, clawing to get away from him and back inside. Back to her husband who is still somewhere within.

Hanzo is not to her what Angela is to the bystanders outside. He is a bad man, taking her away from her husband, leaving him behind. The woman won’t see him as a savior.

The thought irks him more than he should let it.

He focuses on getting her downstairs, outside.

As he sets her down, she makes to dash back into the burning building and Hanzo roughly grabs her by her waist, lifting her off the ground. She flails in his grasp, screaming and drawing the attention from others.

She cries and wails, frantic and angry at Hanzo for taking her away. For leaving her husband behind.

Doctor Zeigler is quick to join them and sedate her. Unethical, but she would have run back in.

They ease her to the ground, sitting against a post.

“The son drinks himself to sleep.” Doctor Zeigler informs him. She doesn’t encourage him to go back in, nor insist he stay out. She gives him facts, things that might benefit him in determining the next course of action.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Hanzo dives back in.

The apartments are hotter, the whole building shifting and unstable from the blaze, but he won’t stay longer this time. He knows where to go, he just has to find the man inside the apartment.

Thankfully, the man doesn’t crawl about when he’s sleeping after blacking out and he’s easy to find sprawled on the bed in the back room. Hanzo grabs him, puts him in a fireman’s carry and makes to haul ass.

He should have known it would never be this easy, it rarely ever is. Life has a way of reminding Hanzo, frequently, that he will never be safe. That those around him will never be safe.

The floor above the stairwell gives, raining down on them and knocking Hanzo off his feet. Exposed more to the debris, the son takes the brunt of the damage, tumbling down the stairs. Hanzo is quick enough, even in the haze of heat, that he rights himself almost instantly, watching with horror as the son lays limp at the bottom.

His only hope is that the alcohol has left the man loose and limber, much like drunks in car wrecks who walk away with little to no damage on their person.

The red stain of the son’s abdomen tells a different story. The son begins to rouse from all the jostling, even the strength of his blackout not enough to withstand the pain of being practically impaled by a large shred of wood.

Hanzo curses under his breath, reaching the man quickly and hauling him outside, dragging him in a supine position until they are out on the street. “Doctor!” He barks over his shoulder as he gets them further from the building, trying to ignore the streak of red he leaves behind. “Doctor, he needs assistance!”

Doctor Zeigler practically flies to them, assisting in pulling the son to safety before checking over his wound. She hisses under her breath and begins working.

The older woman cries, distraught in the background, holding onto the sedated form of the daughter-in-law.

Hanzo, despite having pulled them from the building, having made an effort in the rescue and played a big part in their safety, feels useless. In this moment, there is nothing he can do.

He was never good at comfort, it was weak to display empathy- and it wasn’t as if anyone around him showed any amount of sadness or anything that warranted being comforted. Such were the ways of his family, iron and cruel.

While he knows medicine, enough to stitch his own wounds and prevent infection, he can’t be of any assistance to Doctor Zeigler who frowns angrily at the jut of wood from the son’s abdomen.

He can hear her muttering to herself, pushing herself through finding out how best to help this man.

“Stay with me, stay with me,” She says, digging around in her bag. She pulls out a canister, one he’s seen Morrison use in the field, and places it on the ground. A small biotic zone appears, it brings a flush to the man’s face, but even Hanzo knows it’s not strong enough to fill in a hole. “Come on.” She urges.

Her voice is soft, almost like she doesn’t expect anyone to hear her. Normally Doctor Zeigler is so practical it hurts, so professional that if Genji had not told Hanzo of their many adventures and conversations, Hanzo might have considered her being colder than he.

It is strange, unnerving and intriguing to see her invested as such.

Doctor Zeigler traces the man’s arm, along a flock of birds taking flight up his bicep. “You can’t keep this. You have to give it back.”

A flood of questions flow forth, but Hanzo bites back all of them. She is working and he should not interfere.

She keeps the son stable until the proper paramedics arrive, rushing the son away and taking the old woman and wife with them. Doctor Zeigler speaks with the authorities, but never pushes attention toward Hanzo- he’s grateful for her discretion.

When all is said and done, they’ve missed the greater part of the conference. Hanzo is covered in grime and soot and sweat, and there is a large bloodstain on Doctor Zeigler. Even if they wanted to catch the tail end of the opening speeches, they are in no condition to do so.

Not to mention the fatigue.

They give a quick call to Winston, begging for a pickup. Just like the conference, their physical state leaves them unlikely to get onto a train any time soon and Hanzo believes that Doctor Zeigler is on the same line of thought as he is. They would like their beds.

As they wait, they watch the fire being put out. The doctor leans on Hanzo’s shoulder, slumping into him. His bruises protest, but he’s not one to push away someone who needs support like such. Especially when that person is prone to never displaying it in the first place.

A weakness, the clan would call it back in the day.

A comfort that people in their line of work rarely ask for, he knows now.

Touch, closeness, a shoulder to lean on when the day is done. He wonders who provides as much for Doctor Zeigler - he should start thinking of her as Angela at the very least, considering her involvement in his ongoing redemption.

This time, he is unable to stop all of the questions and one slips through. “Do you have a soulmate?” He asks. It’s as much about wanting to know about her as it is him still trying to determine what he is supposed to gain or want from his.

The doctor stiffens against him, pulling away slightly. It’s only her exhaustion that prevents her from removing her weight from him entirely. “No.” Clipped, guarded.

Hanzo knows better than to prod.

He grunts in assent, acknowledging her unspoken boundary, and in silence they wait.

A cab arrives for them, delivers them to a private airstrip where Tracer is waiting with a small carrier. She looked worriedly at the both of them, fretting immediately and helping get them settled into the carrier before taking off. She quips a little promise to have them both in their bed before they know it.

Angela doesn’t separate from him. At first she stays at his side on the carrier, content to finally be heading to the base where a small cot calls her name. Hanzo is eager to drink and share his tale with McCree- the man will get a kick out of Hanzo having run into a burning building.

Eventually, she leans against his shoulder again, her soft breath indicative of sleep. Napping. Worn from helping so many people in such a short amount of time. Travel weariness is definitely not helping either of them.

A slight bit of turbulence wakes her and she sits upright on her own again with a sleepy “Apologies.”

It is quiet again, but something crawls around the space between them. Too much thinking, too much silence. They aren’t the talkers and they so rarely talk to each other.

“He won’t make it.” The doctor says suddenly.

“He might.” Hanzo’s own optimism surprises himself.

She shoots him a glance. “He won’t.”

Guilt begins to gnaw at him, twisting in his gut unpleasantly. He was the cause. He dropped the man. He wasn’t careful about the stairs and the ceiling caving in and -

“That poor woman. She won’t be getting those birds back.” Angela grabs her arm where the flock flew across the son’s skin.

And _that_ scares him more than it should.

Not for the other woman, though he is remorseful that the events of the day might cost her the life of her husband.

No, he is frightened because it could happen to him.

His job, his new life with Overwatch, isn’t always recon and simple escort missions. There have been times where he’s been shot at, times where Hanzo knew he was running into danger but that’s just the way things are. At any of those moments, he could have died. Calculated, by enemies or a wrong move.

Assassins are still after him, though not as many as when he first left his clan, still. It just takes a slip up and a lucky winner to cash in on the money his family’s remains are paying for his head.

Hell, even in the training range. One misfire from a comrade, one bullet that should have been a blank.

Anything can take his life.

And with it, the tattoo will never find its way home. His soulmate will never again see the blossoms and in turn, will be stuck with the betta fish on their foot for the rest of their life. A reminder of what could have been.

His stomach twists, flipping and seizing up so tight with panic that for a second he forgets how to breathe.

Until he hears the soft hitch of breath from his traveling companion. Doctor Zeigler is slumped forward, face buried in her hands, trying to control her breathing. She isn’t crying, but this might be the closest thing to it.

There is something about how familiar she was with the scene, open and vulnerable despite her usual professionalism. It spins the beginnings of a story, presents a thread and if Hanzo pulls just right, the whole thing will unravel. The question is: does he want to?

“Did you _have_ a soulmate?” He tries again.

Angela freezes and then all life seems to leave her body at once. “Yes.”

It is enough. He won’t pry. He knows the depth of privacy a loss like that requires. He’s seen that sort of broken bond break the strongest of wills- like his father.

He does his best to offer comfort, a hand on her shoulder, and keeps quiet, letting her sort through everything on her own. It’s all he knows.

Which makes is why he’s startled when she leans into him again, her breathing fast and choppy and lost in a waking nightmare.

Uneasily, but feeling as thought Angela needs it, he slides his arm over her shoulders and tucks her closer to him. Still he remains quiet, he can’t offer any words of kindness to her. There are no lines of wisdom passed to him from his father that can ease this sort of ache.

“She was a patient.” Angela says, her voice reedy. “Terminal. I knew it, but that didn’t stop me from-” She chokes, and Hanzo pulls her closer.

The doctor tries to gather herself, attempting even the smallest amount of professionalism, even while dealing with the remnants of grief. In this moment, Hanzo is the only one privy to this chip in her armor, and he knows he will have to keep it that way. A secret between them. He’s only here to be an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on- it could be anyone else on this ship with her.

It may have happened before. He’ll never know, because like himself, anyone else who has witnessed Angela shake apart at the seams, will never betray her trust.

“It was a caduceus- as big as my back. I spent so long getting it done.” She sniffs, wipes at her eyes which still remain dry.

To have something so large, gone in an instant, must have been painful.

Hanzo knows, unless by some miracle he finds his soulmate and gives the flowers back, the same will happen to him and the one bonded to him. The pain of getting a tattoo on the top of one’s foot is incredible, and in a split second it could be gone forever, all for naught. Likewise with his flowers.

“Corpses can’t transfer tattoos.”

-

There's an ache that settles in Hanzo's gut for the rest of the flight back to base. He searches immediately for McCree, intending to drown that feeling in strong booze and good company.

Despite his rough edges, against the veiled warnings from the rest of Overwatch, McCree makes him laugh. Even on the roughest days, after nightmares have woken him up hours before sunrise, where he trudges through cranky and snapping at anyone that even breathes in his direction, he can count on his friend to put him at ease. It's like, somehow, the cowboy knows, just _knows_ , when Hanzo needs the distractions most. It's like they were always meant to find each other, companions in their past sins and uncertain futures together.

Some small part of Hanzo hopes, utterly wishes and knows that it's foolish, that if he ever finds his soulmate, they'll be just as fond of McCree as he is.

So, he searches their usual haunts. The tarmac comes up empty, the rafters in the gym and the kitchen are vacant as well. He finds McCree just as he's about to ask Athena where his room is - and is surprised with the sudden thought that he's never seen where McCree lays his head at night, where he slinks off to after they've boozed it up for hours.

The shooting range; a red little light above the door tells Hanzo that an active session is occurring.

He carefully slips in, making nary a sound and letting the echoes of shots guide him toward his friend.

Unsurprisingly, McCree is shooting targets. He's just about to issue a competition and demand that the loser bring the drink tonight, when he notices that something is off with the gunslinger. His posture is unusually tense, his face is pinched tight with sweat beading across his furrowed brow. McCree's hands shake, just the smallest amount and he keeps having to adjust his grip on Peacekeeper.

It all screams wrong and Hanzo steps with purpose, alerting the cowboy to his presence.

McCree only gives him a fleeting glance over the shoulder, dark eyes angry with something - him? - anything.

That's all the recognition he gets.

Neither of them speak. McCree isn't forthcoming in the silence, like he usually is when they drink together. He doesn't give any hints as to what bothers him, what causes him to draw his body up so tight, unloading round after round into the target.

Hanzo notices the silhouette cutout is obliterated at its center.

He isn't sure what to say. There is nothing to say about the way that McCree’s hands shake. About the hot tears that suddenly begin to streak down his cheeks and catch in his beard. There's pain written in every line of the grimace he wears and in his quietly hiccuping breaths.

Yet, Hanzo can do nothing; if he's learned anything about the cowboy, it's that McCree hates to be noticed. Hates to be vulnerable.

So Hanzo remains quiet, takes a seat nearby to inspect his arrows. He leaves McCree alone, but keeps an eye on the distressed man. He's seen McCree angry before, but this isn't rage. No, this is something different, deeper. A festering wound that never heals.

With a start, Hanzo realizes what tears at the gunslinger. It wasn't so long ago that the same feeling nearly ended his own life.

Anguish.

A bullet strikes metal, the sound of the ricochet is deafening.

Suddenly, McCree is screaming.

Hanzo jumps to his feet, his heart pounding. All he can think is that McCree's been hit, but what he watches is somehow worse.

McCree screams again, unloads the rest of the bullets in his gun and when it empties, he shouts and tosses Peacekeeper down the range. He knocks the case of ammo off his station and then whirls around to face Hanzo.

His eyes, filled with tears and lined red, widen and he sinks to his knees. McCree hunches over, claws at his face and his body jerks from the force of his sobs.

Privacy, they need privacy to keep anyone else from witnessing this. McCree can't be noticed, not now. No one needs to see the gunslinger like this.

"Athena, lock down the range!" Hanzo barks, springing to action. He grabs McCree's wrists, pulling the cowboy's hands from his face.

McCree snarls through his heaving cries. "Let go!"

They scuffle, Hanzo desperately trying to prevent McCree's hands from returning to his face, but the gunslinger fights dirty. He throws elbows and bites when Hanzo gets near enough, leaves marks that will bruise.

"McCree!"

"Get off'a me!" He grabs a handful of bullets and shells and throws them in Hanzo's face, trying to shuffle away on the floor.

It gives Hanzo the opportunity he needs. He wraps his arms around McCree's upper body, restraining his arms. He topples them both on their sides and scoots until his back hits a wall, dragging McCree with him. Hanzo locks his legs around McCree's to prevent the cowboy from kicking at him with spur-adorned heels.

McCree screams; a bellow that is raw and hurting.

"Jesse! Cease!" Hanzo orders, pleading and begging internally for this to stop. He isn't sure what to do. He doesn't know how to help.

McCree struggled for what feels like an eternity before he falls limp with a ragged sob.

The archer tightens his hold, just in case it's a ruse. He leans forward, knocks his forehead against the back of McCree's neck. Hanzo's grip tightens when the cowboy shakes, tries to hold him together.

"Did you know I was a triplet?" McCree's voice is unsteady, weak. "My sisters-" He chokes and begins clawing at his shirt. At his heart like he means to tear it out. "I don't remember their faces!" He cries out. "I- I-" He falls into fits again, strains against Hanzo's iron grip. _"Fuck!"_

McCree twists in his arms and Hanzo thinks he's about to break free, but instead he grabs onto Hanzo's hands and forces him to hold on tighter. Afraid of being let go.

"It's my birthday." He says, broken.

Unsaid: ours.

-

After what must only be minutes, but feels like hours, McCree calms himself. He shakes still, but he makes no move to get out of Hanzo's grasp. He's pliant enough to sit up with Hanzo, still leaning heavily against the archer's chest but refusing to let go of his hands.

"Remember I told ya that I only broke a promise once?”

The question gives Hanzo pause, brings up the memory of a passing comment. Back before this was a friendship, back when he would have been wary of McCree turning Peacekeeper on him in his fury. “One of your many regrets.”

McCree tenses and for a moment, Hanzo is prepared to let him go if he desires. “Probably the biggest.”

Hanzo can hear the cogs turning in McCree’s head. They’re the same as the ones that go on in his own. He has the feelings, the idea, but he needs the right words to say. Carefully, meticulously, McCree is trying to spin a story in which only just enough is revealed. Not too much, but not too little.

“I promised them I’d come back home.”

He waits, knows that there’s more, if only McCree could find the words and the voice to say them. Anything Hanzo says would disturb that, make it harder, cause an upset in this fragile moment. So all he does is tightens his arms around the cowboy, enjoying how McCree leans into him just a little bit more.

“I told my pa and sisters that I’d be home later, but they didn’t know I was running off to join a gang.” He leans his head back against Hanzo’s shoulder, closes his eyes and takes in a shaky breath. “I was young, dumb, and lucky with a gun.”

_‘I need more than luck to save people.’_

“We were dirt poor, happy, but strugglin’ and I thought if I could make my own way, it’d be one less mouth for Pa to feed.” He chuckles to himself. “One less pair of feet trompin’ through his flowers.”

“Why not go back to them?” Hanzo asks, knowing for all the world, even when he’d thought Genji dead, he’d wanted to return home and see that shit-eating grin, to see his father’s garden, to walk familiar halls.

Jesse sits up suddenly, glancing over his shoulder. “I did.” He gruffs. “After I got pulled outta Deadlock, given a second chance. First vacation I got, even with the damned tracking bracelet on my ankle, I went back home.”

He shudders, curls in on himself. Hanzo doesn’t hesitate to lean forward and press his hands to McCree’s back, grounding him.

“It was all burned. My home, the fields, my pa, my-” He chokes, shakes. His sisters. “All of it was gone and I wasn’t there to save ‘em cause I was too busy getting my kicks doin’ bad things. I always wondered, what was I doin’ when they went? Was I robbin’ someone blind? Drinkin’ ‘til I passed out?

“Did they ever wonder where I was?”

Hanzo slides further around McCree, his heart jumps when the cowboy presses back into him. Comfort and company.

With a start, one that makes Hanzo bite his tongue to keep the words from spilling as McCree allows this rare moment of contact, Hanzo realizes he wants this. From his soulmate he wants the ability to fall apart without fear, and likewise to be able to hold his soulmate together in their time of need.

Hell, wrapped around Jesse as he is, warm and in a strange twilight, part of Hanzo would be okay with McCree filling that void. Tattoos be damned, what he feels now, what he feels whenever he’s around the gunslinger - excitement, awe, happiness - is what he wants to experience forever.

He never wants to let this go.


	5. Asphodel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussions of past attempted suicide.  
> Serious conversations about depression.
> 
> National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

McCree disappears.

For two weeks there is no sign of him- no drinks in the evenings, no shooting competitions, not even a glimpse of a red serape disappearing around a corner.

It’s an early morning when Hanzo considers the merits of asking Athena where the gunslinger may be found. On one hand, he’d be able to make sure Jesse is okay, but on the other, it’s an invasion of privacy, something they both value highly.

In the end, Hanzo ultimately decides that it risks too much to seek him out in such a manner. Jesse will seek him out, just as he always has, when he wants the company.

“You gonna move anytime soon? Or are you planning on scowling the coffee maker into submission?” A voice chirps beside him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he takes note of Hana’s presence, pajama clad and leaning on the counter. Her arms are crossed and she looks rather annoyed at his current position - indeed, blocking the coffee machine.

“Hint: it won’t work.” She prods his arm with a sharp elbow and he takes a sidestep to make room. The young woman pours herself a mug of coffee, draining half of it unsweetened instantly. Revolting. She tops her mug off with more coffee and jerks her head toward the table in the back. “Join me.”

Without much else to do, Hanzo doesn’t object and takes a seat across from her.

Hana nurses the coffee this time, taking slow sips. She feigns interest in a newspaper left on the table, turning it to read the headlines and snorting at _‘Jetpacked Feline Escapes Scientists’ Lab’_. The blurry photograph of a dark silhouette blob in the sky that accompanies the article is equally ridiculous.

“You’ve been distracted lately.” She suddenly says, staring at him over the rim of her mug before she takes another sip.

“I have been-”

“Distracted.”

He frowns at her. “Preoccupied. Yes.”

Her eyes narrow, assessing, and whatever Hana finds makes her shrug and go back to leisurely drinking her coffee. “You don’t have to say anything, just don’t let it be a problem for the rest of us.”

The quiet calm that befalls them is stifling- nothing like the ease he feels when he sits with McCree for long hours. He can feel Hana’s gaze on him, nothing short of scrutinizing as though he poses a risk to her in this very moment.

With the way he feels, in a torrent of the unknown, he just might be.

The flowers, his missing betta, McCree. These three things have upheaved the stability he used to be able to find so easily. Not exactly peace, there is little of that these days, but at least he knew where he was in the world. Where he was going, what was expected- the plan.

But now he finds his thoughts lingering, wandering off in the quiet interrims of the day. He imagines his soulmate and the flowers spread across their back. Hanzo daydreams about laying side by side with them, their feet a mismatched pair with tangled limbs. The betta fish reunited through their contact.

And he thinks mostly of Jesse at all hours of the day. When he is with the man, he thanks the company and enjoys the conversations and just _him_. All of him. Offputting with his bluntness, his honesty is appreciated as well as his tact with that blade of raw and ugly truths.

When he is away, while Jesse has been missing for the past two weeks- he desires his presence. Hanzo thinks of when he’ll next sit beside the gunslinger and share stories and time. He anticipates the meetings with an eagerness he hasn’t felt since he was a boy, awaiting Sojiro to finish his meetings before taking Genji and he out for a lavish dinner.

Still, despite all his daydreaming and wishing and thinking, he isn’t sure where to go from here.

“What do you think of soulmates?” He asks aloud.

The words give Hana pause and her face pinches into a scowl. “I hate them.”

Hanzo gives her silence, but nods in attention.

“Fate, destiny, whatever you wanna call it. Deciding who I want to be with?” She seethes. “For all the shit I’ve done, I should be able to pick who I want for myself. If anyone.” She pauses, takes a breath and puts her mug down. Once more, she takes stock of Hanzo across from her. “I refuse to get a tattoo- I don’t want mine to want me because fate said so. I want them to want me for me.”

Again, quiet settles. Thick. Unnerving. While Hanzo enjoys Hana’s company and respects that she is a soldier first and foremost, despite her age and appearance, there is no companionship between them.

It is broken suddenly, by the soft jingles of spurs. Telltale and causing Hanzo’s heart to race. He tries to tell himself not to get his hopes up, that he hasn’t seen McCree in two weeks and for all he knows, the man has left the base entirely. But still, he anticipates.

Thankfully, he is not let down and the cowboy meanders into the small dining area. He makes a bee-line for the coffee machine, pouring a cup for himself and heaping sugar into it. McCree glances over his shoulder, makes eye-contact and then makes a second, identical mug.

He knows he’s staring, Hanzo can feel the smile pulling across his face in relief. His friend is still here.

McCree stalks up behind Hana, clearing his throat. “Miss Song, mind if I borrow Shimada?”

Dramatically, she tosses her hair over her shoulder. “There are two and you have to take the one I’m with?”

He laughs, nothing as energetic as what he shares with Hanzo, but amused all the same. “This one don’t threaten me…” He reconsiders. “When I don’t rightly deserve it.”

“Fine.” She stands, striding away with her coffee. Before leaving the room, she stops and regards the both of them with critical eyes. She’s a strategist in the end, reading the battlefield in a split second and nothing escapes her. “I hate them.” She repeats and then disappears.

-

Jesse leads him out to the end of the tarmac, the first place they ever shared a drink. This time, there’s no alcohol, just coffee and a friend and Hanzo finds he doesn’t mind one bit. In fact, a small part of him is happy that he isn’t strictly a drinking buddy. Though… the coffee does qualify as some sort of drink. At least they don’t have to be inebriated to enjoy the company.

The silence between them feels light, natural. Nothing like what happened with Hana.

No, right here, beside McCree with a sweetened cup of coffee, the quiet is perfect and easy.

Jesse shifts, restless. “I was… Two weeks ain’t-” He grumbles and falls silent. Not good with apologies.

“It is alright.” Hanzo says, closing his eyes and enjoying the morning warmth around them. The coast makes the air humid and hazy, but the sound of the waves lapping against the rocks are soothing and worth the occasional bad hair day. “I am glad you are still here.”

“Same for you.”

Hanzo laughs. “Where would I go?”

“I dunno. Thought you might avoid me like the plague after…”

His birthday. The range. The evening that McCree shook apart and Hanzo held onto him so tightly, afraid he might lose his friend.

“Thank you.”

A hand lands on Hanzo’s shoulder, drawing his full attention. He locks eyes with Jesse. “What for?”

McCree withdraws, pulls his legs up and almost looks like he’s trying to curl around his mug. “For bein’ there.” He lets out a shaky breath. “Been a long time since I’ve had anyone with me. It helps.”

“Then,” Hanzo begins, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can process them, before he has a chance to think about what he’s staying. All he knows is that he feels them. “I will be around for it in the future. I promise you.”

The look, akin to shock and perhaps a bit of disbelief, that shoots across McCree’s face is heartwrenching. Hanzo has learned in the time they’ve known each other, that the cowboy still finds it hard to believe that Hanzo considers him a friend, that someone _wants_ his company.

This expression, the way McCree stares into nothingness- it’s as if the knowledge that someone _cares_ is too much for him.

“I tried to kill myself the first year.”

Silence follows the statement. Even the gulls, ones close and distant, stop. It’s nothing but their breathing and the waves. Hanzo dares to scoot closer, bending a leg to bump his knee into McCree’s leg.

“I didn’t think I could live without ‘em. I spent so long bein’ one of three.” He takes a long drink from his mug, mulling over words. “We were identical, all of us. I used to be able to look in a mirror and know how my sisters were doin’. I knew what they looked like so if I ever ran into them, I could spare ‘em.

“But then I changed and I don’t really know how similar I would have looked to ‘em. I don’t know what they would look like today.”

“Tall.” Hanzo grunts. “I am willing to bet they would have been just as tall as you.”

McCree barks out a laugh, it sounds as though it hurts him, melancholy but amused. “Yeah. I suppose so.” He leans into where Hanzo’s knee touches him, seeking more. “I stole a bunch of pills from the medbay and tried to OD the night before. I didn’t think I- I didn’t want to know what it felt like to celebrate being alive another year without them there. Not when I’d all but thrown my life in the garbage.

“But I failed. I woke up sick as a dog, threw up a bunch of half-gone pills and had to pick my ass up and go through the day. They thought I was just hungover, chewed me out, didn’t feel like correcting them.

“The next year I tried again and it didn’t work.” He laughs, self-deprecating. “How much of a fuck up do you gotta be to fail that shit twice? I was mad as a hatter and took it out on a few training dummies.”

_‘There was something teetering on the edge for that boy,’_

Hanzo purses his lips, torn between attempting to comfort his friend and making a smartass comment to combat the heavy tone. Humor, deflecting away from the real pain. Instead, he settles his hand on McCree's thigh, giving a firm pat, encouraging him to continue.

"I've tried a couple more times since. I've seen doctors, taken meds, hell I even went to therapy for a few months. Ain't nothin' filling this... this hole I feel."

"Then do not fill it."

Jesse looks at him suddenly, angry, aghast, like what he's suggesting is beyond deplorable.

Quickly, Hanzo searches for the right words, squeezing McCree's thigh to beg for more time. He means no ill will, surely his friend must know that. "That is to say, learn to live around it. That hole..." He fiddles with his bracelet, the stone orbs rolling over numb skin. He pulls it away, revealing a puckered scar in a line across his wrist. "Is part of you. Moving on can sometimes mean that it never fills."

McCree is silent for a long time, and for a moment Hanzo feared he's overstepped. Hanzo is the reason for his own loss, killing Genji. Some of that burden and hurt has healed because unlike Jesse, who's sisters will never come back, Hanzo is lucky and gets a second chance. The cowboy will never have that- and that they were triplets makes things worse.

Suddenly, McCree grabs his wrist, dragging it into his lap and holding on with both hands. Leather clad and metal thumbs press under his bracelet and over the scar and Hanzo doesn't say anything about the tremor he feels from his companion.

"I had a bad panic attack. I had not slept for days and the anniversary of my mistake was soon. I managed one, but," Hanzo chuckles, more at the sheer absurdity of it all than anything else. "I just got worse. Began feeling strange. It was like I was outside myself, watching it all unfold.

"It was stupid of me, and I am surprised that the assassins I had been running from for days did not find me and kill me then. I felt like shit- lost a lot of blood."

"Why didn't you try to finish?" McCree asks, his voice low, a delicate question.

Hanzo shrugs with his free side, not willing to jostle his arm out of McCree's grip. "I do not know. I thought about it, the first one was not bad, but it did not feel... consuming anymore. I treated the wound as best I could and then moved on. I had to."

Jesse presses hard on his scar, the push on his tendons making his hand curl of its own volition. "Wouldn't it have been easier to let an assassin take ya out?"

"And give them the satisfaction?" He barks out a laugh and when Hanzo catches a glimpse of a smile on McCree's face, he knows the cowboy feels the same. Hunted, wanting it to end, but not by just anyone's hand. "Over time the urge lessened. I have not wanted to kill myself for years now, but there are some days when I wish I just did not exist. No violent end, just," Hanzo makes a _pop_ sound. "Gone."

"Check out for a while?"

Hanzo smiles. "Exactly."

McCree hums. "I ain't tried in a long time. I want to most days, but, I dunno. Recently I got things to look forward to, things that I wanna stick around for."

Yanking his hand down in McCree's grip, he takes a hold of his friend's hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tightly. "Hold onto that. Look forward to things. Stay." He pulls the cowboy's hand to his chest, the leather catching against the zipper of his jacket. "I cannot speak for anyone else, but I would miss you terribly if you left."

With no words, Jesse conveys how much that means by the deathgrip he suddenly has on Hanzo's hand. Once more overwhelmed that someone actually cares.

It breaks Hanzo's heart.

"Tell me about your family." He urges, "I am sure you know plenty about mine, but I would like to know about yours."

McCree lights up, his smile is sad but his eyes are sparkling with happiness as he recalls better times. "My Pa loved sunflowers."

The tattoo up his back suddenly itches, reminding Hanzo of the two sunflowers that stand proud against his skin. He wonders if, at a more appropriate time, Jesse might enjoy seeing the large bouquet. If it would remind him of his father and his childhood.

"Pa gave everything to us. He wore the same ratty overalls for years to keep me and my sisters in clothes that fit. Our ma died before we knew her, so Pa learned to mend clothes and braid hair and suffered through several dress up days." McCree snorts. "I remember this one time, we insisted he stay in his dress the whole day, was a real big royal event that lasted all day and he had to look nice. He had to go tend to the flowers, so there's this scruffy man workin' the field in a pink dress and a tiara. A few people stopping to buy our flowers laughed at him but he never took it off.

"He loved us almost as much as he loved his flowers. Used to yell when Aster and Willow would pick the baby sunflowers to make crowns. Downright screamed at me," Jesse's voice drops, imitating the father he remembers. "' _Lily of the Valley, you stop tramplin' all those flowers, they ain't done nothin' to you!_ '" He laughs, pulling Hanzo's hand into his lap again, tracing that same scar as he talks.

"Lily of the Valley?"

McCree pauses, purses his lips. "My given name. Lily. Three flowers for Pa: Aster, Desert Willow, and Lily." He smiles again. "When I came out to my Pa, he was pleased as a peach. Told me that while it weren't no flower, 'Jesse' worked into my nickname just fine. Jesse of the Valley.

"Gave me his grandpa's razor and taught me how to shave my face, even though I had no hair to speak of. He just about lost his mind when I took it to my actual hair and hacked it all up, was worried I could have hurt myself and was upset that I didn't let him help.” He laughs, caught in the memory.

His smile, carefree in this moment, makes Hanzo’s heart stutter. To see his friend so open is a treat, one he savors because Hanzo doesn’t know when he’ll see it again.

"Aster and Willow were little hellions just like me. The town knew if somethin' was goin' wrong, the McCree sisters were involved. We used to argue who was who's right hand and left hand in all our escapades. I don't think we ever settled on it.

"When I cut my hair, they chopped theirs off too cause how else were we supposed to do the Ice Cream Switcheroo if we didn't all look the same." He chuckles, sighs. "I just miss 'em so much."

Hanzo squeezes his hand. "I do not think that feeling ever stops."

Jesse, for all his smiles while he talked about his father and his sisters, scrunches his face, curls in around Hanzo's hand and breathes deep. "I wish it would."

-

Hanzo stands in the open door of the transport, clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. Some days he likes to think he's a hardy man, able to withstand the elements, and for the most part he's correct. Just not when it comes to the biting cold of fierce Russian winds.

He prays that Mei doesn't drag out the goodbye any longer than necessary.

Yet, he also knows that there's no telling when she'll be seeing Zaryanova again.

Their relationship is no hidden knowledge, they hadn't even played around with trying to deny it. How like the strongwoman to proudly boast about her partner, to be overjoyed with Mei's accomplishments, and to treat her with the respect due of a highly revered scientist.

More than once Hanzo witnessed the simple ease in which the two worked on completely separate projects in the same space. Weaving effortlessly around each other, only with the slightest bump of hips for attention to steal a kiss.

He found himself envious, but at the same time, experienced sympathetic joy.

The couple seemed to have that affect on nearly all members of the reforming Overwatch, their presence in a room was sure to make the atmosphere lighter. If not from their adoration of each other, then by their personalities alone.

Hanzo is pulled out of his thoughts by hand warmers being pressed suddenly to his cheeks, large gloves obscuring his vision.

"You look cold. Let's get in and get going." Mei chimes, removing her hands from his face and heading inside.

He catches his reflection in the mirror; his nose is as red as can be and his cheeks look much the same. There's a few flurries of snow caught in his eyelashes, though most of it collected on his winter hat.

To his chagrin, Mei appears as though she's unaffected. Her cheeks are still the same jovial red as always, and she even hastily sheds her thick jacket like she was sweltering once the bay door closes.

Hanzo is pleasantly warm in his layers and rightly doesn't feel like unbundling himself. He has half a mind to ask if Mei is willing to drop her hand warmers down his shirt, just for a little extra. Next time, he may demand Jesse join the mission, so he can leech from the cowboy's ridiculous heat.

"Sorry that took so long." Mei apologizes, sitting down and removing her snow boots. She wiggles her feet into plush houseshoes, beaming at them when she's satisfied. They're fashioned into yetis that look like they're eating her feet.

He will most definitely ask where they came from. He wants a pair for when he relaxes in his quarters. Maybe even wear them out to his morning coffee rendezvous with McCree on cold days- it would make the cowboy laugh.

In the weeks since Jesse crawled out of whatever hole he'd been hiding in, he'd met Hanzo every morning for coffee. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they said nothing at all. On occasion, Jesse grabs and runs his thumbs over the scar on his wrist. Hanzo isn't sure why Jesse does it, but he doesn't ask. Maybe he worries Hanzo might suddenly try again, or perhaps Jesse is the one with the urge and he's reminding himself of their conversation. Remembering that Hanzo cares.

"Think nothing of it. I would take a long time too if it were my soulmate." He sucks in a breath at the honesty of his own admission. If he could find them, Hanzo would hardly part from their side. As independent as he is, he's led a lonely life and while he doesn't favor romance, he wants companionship.

That much he knows about himself with how readily he seeks out and joins Jesse for their coffee or their late night drinks. No matter what they've done, talked, laughed, or sat in silence, he's always reluctant to leave.

Hanzo's only hope with his soulmate is that they understand his need to be near, but never begrudge him for making space for himself when he needs it.

Mei laughs, a loud and high noise that she attempts to muffle with an ungloved hand, but the force pushes it through. "Oh, Alya and I aren't soulmates."

He blinks, pauses and rethinks the whole thing. "My apologies for assuming." He cranes his head down, a semi-bow. It really had appeared, with as well tuned to each other as they are, that they were soulmates through and through.

She laughs again, pulling a woven blanket over her shoulders and sitting catty-corner to him. "It's flattering. Does everyone think that?"

Hanzo shrugs and then attempts to turtle into his puffy jacket. "I do not know. Gossip is not my thing." Unless it was with McCree, in which case he'd been delighted to find the gruff man was just as savage with his opinions as Hanzo was. They'd never turned their keen eyes on teammates, but people on the streets during a mission were fair game. "With how you two behave, I was under the impression that you were soulmates."

"Oh no." She laughs. "Neither of us have met ours yet."

"What happens when you do?" The question comes out before he can stop it, curiosity and a desire to know if maybe, just maybe, he doesn't have to bet it all on some unknown soulmate. "Why risk it?" The break of a bond, the heartache.

Mei smiles, not put off in the slightest by his probing questions. "Because we are happy. Why should we put off our happiness?" She hums thoughtfully. "We've talked about it. If one of us does find our soulmate, we'll talk more about it then. But right now, we want it to be us."

Hanzo stares at his lap, eyebrows furrowed.

"Don't think too hard on it." The scientist laughs. "Do not let a potential soulmate get in your way." She says, perhaps too knowingly. "If you want someone, if you are happy, go for it."

-

Returning to base, Hanzo surprises even himself by seeking out his brother. For what feels like the first time in their lives, he wants his opinion.

For months he's been spiraling around and around the tattoo on his back. The what-ifs and the uncertainty have been keeping him up long into the night until he's simply too tired to keep his eyes open for a second longer.

He doesn't know how much he wants to find his soulmate; the idea thrills him, but in action he has made little to no effort to back to Dorado and search. Hanzo has no doubt that if he asked for it, the time would be given to him to look.

In the long run, when he analyzes how he feels about every bit and piece that comes with having a soulmate, it scares him. He doesn't know who they are, he doesn't know a single thing about them beyond the flowers on his back. Will they accept his past? Will they demand he leave Overwatch, a thing he can't reasonably do because here, on this base, he makes a difference. He atones bit by bit for the things he's done in his life. Here, he has a friend, something he never thought he'd have when he was younger. He doesn't want to leave Jesse.

There are finer things to Hanzo, things he worries his soulmate might not enjoy. Hanzo loves geometry, algorithms, math. He likes to see it in nature, with the way plants grow, loves to see it in art with symmetry and perfect asymmetry alike. He hopes his soulmate loves it too, or at the very least, loves that he loves it.

He wants coffee in the morning, a drink in the evening. A sparring partner would be ideal. Someone who understands what it's like to have demons and lets him deal with it in his own way, rather than pushing their own systems on him.

Hanzo is afraid that his soulmate will change nothing, or worse, everything.

All he knows, for certain in the moment, he cannot keep trying to figure this out alone with piecemeal advice from people who are certain in what they want out of life.

So he seeks out Genji.

He would go to Jesse with anything else, but he realizes as he searches for his brother, he doesn't want the cowboy to leave. Hanzo doesn't want Jesse to take his sudden interest in his soulmate to mean that Jesse is out and the stranger is in.

No, he's selfish. He wants both Jesse in his life and his soulmate.

With a startling surety, he knows, that if his soulmate were to ever snub Jesse, Hanzo would never forgive them.

He strips his jacket as he enters the training area, mentally preparing himself to finally, _finally_ show someone the flowers. On purpose.

But there is a roar that chills Hanzo's blood and the ink on his arms comes alive in response.

Carefully, Hanzo toes into the sparring room and finds exactly what he feared, but is in awe all the same.

Made of black ink, much like his own, Genji's dragon flies around the room. It is in pieces, hacked away from Genji's back where Hanzo's blade had struck. It's surprising, and relieving, to see that it still manifests all the same.

It's a dance, he realizes, as he watches Genji flow, the dragon following his movements. The dragon rumbles, glides over to Zenyatta and follows the movements of the omnic. Over and over, the dragon is passed between the two, twisting happily and freely, despite the missing bits.

Sure, in the past years since their reunion, he's seen Genji's dragon in action, but Hanzo has never seen it just exist. An extension of his brother, alive from his skin. Both of them, alive.

Whatever he is witnessing seems to be reaching a stop or a resting point, and the dragon glides over to Zenyatta once more and adheres to his back, the ink soaking into his metal frame.

It feels private, intimate, and without a sound, Hanzo leaves.

He can speak with Genji another time.

-

Hanzo finds McCree at their usual spot, sitting by himself with no drink to speak of. He looks surprised when the archers approaches, as though he's not used to Hanzo being the one to seek him out. It's true, in a way, Hanzo has never tracked him down for their meetups, but that's only because Jesse finds him first.

Jesse takes the offered mug with a nod, scooting over the slightest amount to make room for Hanzo, despite there being plenty of space. He tries to make himself small, even in the presence of a friend. Hanzo frowns but doesn't mention it, taking a seat with him.

Neither drink for long moments, enjoying the comfort of each other. There's nothing to talk about- well, there is, but Hanzo has established to himself that he won't. Not with Jesse. He won't risk this friendship, even for the sake of his peace of mind and his soulmate.

Jesse looks down into his mug and hums. "Coffee?"

"Yes." Hanzo responds, hiding his smile with a long drink.

Taking his first gulp, perhaps ambitiously given the contents, Jesse coughs and chokes on the surprised noise that rips out of his throat.

Hanzo chuckles as he recovers and doesn't attempt to hide his grin when Jesse stares incredulously into his mug.

He smells it and then takes another drink, smaller this time. The resulting beam makes the whole ploy worth it. "Whiskey." He says, eyes wrinkled at the corner, nose scrunched in amusement. "You sly dog."

"I did not lie about the coffee." He just didn't reveal the whole truth about the drink he brought. But really, it was evening. How could McCree have not expected him to bring something alcoholic?

"That you didn't, Han. That you didn't."

The response to the nickname is immediate. The warmth and comfort that has floated around him like a fog suddenly cinches tight around him, squeezing his chest until he can't find the strength to breath because all at once, Hanzo realizes what he wants.

He doesn't know how long it's been like this, how long this possibility has been within his reach. When did Jesse become more than just a friend, toeing the line into something more if only Hanzo would take a good hard look at it.

So he looks now. And finally, he sees. There's no peeling away the rough exterior of Jesse- that's who he is, and it's everything Hanzo adores about him. That shit-eating grin, crooked on his face. His craggy nose, most likely never set right after a break. His eyes, Hanzo wants to stare at them but can't because then he knows he'll be caught, but they are beautiful.

No matter what Jesse does, his eyes are truthful. The anger, the thankfulness, the wary stare. Expressive beyond compare and right now, Hanzo can see that Jesse is relaxed.

Jesse reaches over, takes his arm and presses a thumb to that scar, grounding them both. He suspects that Jesse is unaware of what he's helping Hanzo through.

Hanzo hastily drinks the rest of his coffee, trying to ignore the urge to take and take and take all that he can from the cowboy. As if sensing that Hanzo is more in need of the alcohol than himself, Jesse quickly offers his half-gone mug. He takes it, and though they have shared drinks before, Hanzo is suddenly acutely aware of the taste of Jesse on the ceramic.

"Can't drink too much tonight." Jesse comments. "I got a mission bright and early tomorrow."

"Where to?"

"Dorado."

Where Hanzo's soulmate resides - hopefully - and where Hanzo first began to fall for Jesse. That smile, ink smeared and elated at survival, has been burned into Hanzo's mind. Back then, he was happy for his friend, because they were friends and Hanzo hadn't any notion of anything else. But now, when he looks back on that moment, he realizes that he wants to see it more, that he wants to cause it one day.

The flowers on his back burn, itch, drive Hanzo to shift because he knows he has a soulmate, but Jesse is right here. Right now.

He twists, trying to discreetly scratch his back along the wall behind them, but his movements draw Jesse's attention. The cowboy digs a mean thumb into his wrist, stilling him and causing Hanzo to look over to his friend. They are much closer than he remembers.

Jesse's eyes. Damn his eyes. They hide nothing and all Hanzo can see when they lock gazes, is concern. For him, all for Hanzo.

His breath catches and Hanzo feels trapped. He doesn't know what to do next, where to go. Even in his promiscuous youth, he knew better than to involve feelings with his trysts and he hadn't any friendships to risk with attempted romances. He's in his thirties and yet he feels like a schoolboy.

With the flowers burning against his back, he decides: fuck it.

Fuck his soulmate, he doesn't know them anyways. Fuck the rest of the Overwatch team and what they may think of him for not only his friendship with Jesse, but for wanting something more.

And absolutely, fuck the tattoos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation between Hanzo and McCree is loosely based upon my own experience and my brother's experiences with the subject. I've included the hotline number because I know my brother has used it multiple times at his lowest and I encourage you to save it in your phone just in case, and to share it with friends and family, in case they are silently suffering. I had no knowledge of my brother's attempts until a year after, but that hotline helped save his life and for that, I am thankful.
> 
> National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
> 
> Also worth mentioning, while Jesse is okay with his deadname in this fic, I understand that is not the experience for absolutely everyone with a deadname. I could go on a spiel about why I decided to portray his deadname and his feelings about it this way, but what it boils down to in the end is: Jesse's experience as a trans man is a positive one.  
> If there are questions or complaints about it, I'm more than happy to talk further about the subject.


	6. Eglantine Rose

Hanzo leans forward, tilting his head and Jesse meets him halfway.

All of his previous experiences have been fumbled and rushed. Quick little pick-me-ups in alleys and bars while he was on the run, rarely ever an exchange of names. Fast, lustful, and if Hanzo were to be honest with himself, far from enjoyable.

But this. This is a whisper of lips. Uncertainty and pent up wants.

Jesse lets out a harsh, stuttering breath against his lips, still holding onto Hanzo's wrist as they press more firmly together.

He's always heard that it's proper etiquette to close one's eyes during a kiss, reduce the awkward eye contact, but Hanzo wants to see Jesse. He wants to watch.

Finding that Jesse is staring at him through it all, through the brief moment of contact, thrills him more than it should.

Truthful, oh so open, Jesse's eyes are telling Hanzo everything. Surprise, desire, and something clouded that Hanzo can't quite place.

His free hand finds purchase on Jesse's arm, sliding up slowly because he knows that a sudden touch could ruin this all, make old habits and instincts kick in and that's how one of them ends up with a broken bone and blood stained clothes. His shoulder, his neck, eventually sifting into his hair and as Hanzo scratches lightly at his scalp, Jesse's eyes finally close and he melts.

It doesn't take long for those tentative touches to become hungry. Fists curled, clutching each other tightly, teeth and tongue and a breathless sort of fervor. It's rushed but no less honest and wanting and Hanzo keens into Jesse's mouth.

He wants, he wants, and when Jesse winds up leaning over him, bullying him to the ground, Hanzo has no complaints.

Catching their breath, Jesse ducks down, tucking his face against Hanzo's neck. His shoulders shake like it's too much, and Hanzo eases his grip. He pets at Jesse's hair, rubs his hand up and down his back but still Jesse doesn't stop falling apart.

Jesse tucks closer, his breath unsteady and Hanzo is preparing himself to deal with whatever comes next. A breakdown, demons clawing at the door, overwhelmed by everything. So many possibilities, but he's here for Jesse all the same- he wants to be.

The whole world seems to shatter with a single sentence, Jesse's voice strained like he wants for all the world to be right here, but, "I've got a soulmate."

Hanzo freezes, the world that had shrunk down to only them, suddenly expanding. Coming into perfect, sharp, and cutting clarity. A knife that slowly begins to drive through his ribs.

"I can't- godamnit Hanzo." Jesse snarls against his skin. "I want- I can't do this to 'em."

"Who?" He croaks. Who is so lucky to have Jesse as theirs, dictated by fate that they are made for each other.

Jesse pulls off, sits up and scoots away. He rights his clothing which is rumpled from where Hanzo grabbed it in his fists, pulling for more. More he won't ever get. "Dunno, but someone's walkin' around with my ink. They're out there somewhere and this- is don't feel right. Feels like cheatin'."

Hanzo stares up at the sky, cloudless, limitless. He wants to be swallowed whole by the endless expanse, anything to avoid this feeling- the knife of reality pushing further in. "You do not know them."

"Not yet."

"Then it is not wrong-"

"It is."

Hanzo's brows furrow- why would Jesse deny himself what he wants, what they both clearly want, for a soulmate who isn't around. "They are not here, Jesse." He sits up, stares down his companion. "You do not owe them your loyalty."

Jesse snarls, eyes furious and Hanzo scowls in response. "You don't know what it’s like!" He snaps.

"I do." The archer seethes. "Mine is absent as well. They have not been here when I have needed them. You have."

"And you've been here for me, but that don't change the fact that my soulmate knows I exist. I know mine's out there somewhere and I won't hurt them like this!"

"Hurt them like what!?" Hanzo suddenly yells, everything pulled tight until it snapped. He wanted, he gave in, tried and it's being shoved in his face. No soulmate around, and now he's going to lose his friend because of Jesse's absentee soulmate. "Why do they matter!?"

He's hurt, petulant. It's unfair, it's _unfair_ that the one of the few times Hanzo tries to do something for himself, it backfires. This isn't for the clan, this isn't to atone, this isn't even something suggested by anyone else. His own decision, from start to finish. And it stings to have it just out of reach.

"They're my fuckin' _soulmate_ , Shimada, that's why!" Jesse yells, standing up, kicking over one of the mugs in a fit. "They're the reason I'm still around! I owe it to them!"

_'Recently I got things to look forward to, things that I wanna stick around for.'_

Hanzo goes cold all over, the name putting ice in his veins. A step back, too many steps back.

Jesse sneers at him, looks down at Hanzo like he's shit from the bottom of his boot and Hanzo's heart twists. "If you wanna cheat on your soulmate, that's fine by me, but I can't do it to mine." For good measure, before he leaves, he kicks over the other mug too.

For a minute, Hanzo sits there, dumbfounded. He doesn't understand what the problem is. Their soulmates are not around, there is no relationship formed between them, it's not cheating or wrong or hurtful to want something else. It doesn't even have to be permanent, though Hanzo would like it to be.

But as he realizes that McCree has just shot him down, mashed him into the dirt, Hanzo lets out a scream. Agonizing and frustrated, he yells. He grabs one of the toppled mugs and slings it against the wall where the cowboy sat.

It shatters and it feels so good to destroy something so he does it again. Their comfort and coffee, cast against the ground in shards.

He doesn't need McCree anyways. Fuck him.

-

Hanzo considers himself a very lucky man.

No, not lucky. Fortunate. The scenarios of his life spin toward the positive, but he would never gamble because he just isn’t that lucky.

He is fortunate enough to be given a second chance in his brother's graces - he's yet to talk to Genji about the tattoos. After the altercation with McCree, Genji had been out on several missions.

To still be alive is a gift from fate, even with a large sum of money attached to his head and assassin after assassin sent after him from the remains of his clan. He really should consider sending them a message, or maybe ending the remnants of his past once and for all. Another topic to discuss with Genji.

While they were understandably wary at first, the support of Overwatch as he atoned for what he did in his past surely exhausted all of his fortune.

That has to be the explanation as to why he struggles with a soulmate he doesn’t know how to find. Why McCree hasn’t spoken to him since he stormed away that unfateful evening.

Sometimes, Hanzo swears he can still taste Jesse on his lips. Coffee, cigars, and whiskey.

It has to be some sort of cosmic joke that just as it seemed like Hanzo could be happy with something for himself, it was ripped from him.

That had to be it. The universe’s big ‘fuck you’, reminding him of where he belongs in the world.

Yet, it’s a sign to the contrary that on the day that Hanzo goes to King's Row, the skies are clear and the sun beats down. It's humid, having been raining the day before, and there are still puddles out on the streets. He counts his blessings, that he shouldn't have to navigate through downpour to find Tracer's girlfriend.

Lena had looked put out when her plans to pick Emily up had been sidelined- their usual pilot was sick and she was the only other one qualified to drive the carrier.

It was no problem for Hanzo, having no jobs to do, to go get Emily and escort her to the base.

He tried to ignore the hard, angry stare from McCree as he did so. Hanzo tried to not let that knife slip further into his lungs as he watched the gunslinger get on the transport.

Hanzo told himself, as he waved them away, that he was saying goodbye to Tracer, not to anyone else within. Definitely not McCree.

He stares down at the hastily scrawled address, crumpled from being tucked in his pocket for too long. Hanzo is normally adept at navigation, but then again he is normally given markers and can skip over confusing streets and signs by sticking to the rooftops. On foot, without someone to guide him - from a long range scope or from a map back at the watchpoint - he isn't quite lost, but he gets the feeling that he's missing something.

It doesn't help that he's in the omnic part of town, where there is less upkeep and graffiti mars nearly every surface.

Spying an omnic couple, he takes a small punch to his pride and approaches them.

They draw away from him as he approaches, the lights on one of them flickering.

Hanzo takes his hands out of his coat pockets, palms up, disarming. Between two fingers he holds the address and he reaches out as far as he can, keeping as much distance between them as he can. "Could you tell me how to get there?"

"I'm not a GPS, buddy." One says, but the other - the one with lights - reaches for the paper anyways.

Hanzo shakes his head. Tensions here as so high, from both sides it would seem. He doesn't blame the omnic for its snappish remark. "But you do live here. I just need a direction to go- I am unsure of where to begin looking."

The omnic with lights sits forward and nods. "This is over by the South Corner. Not the Omnic District, but close to it. If you find Hayfarer street, it should connect with Bonner." It offers the paper back to him.

"Thank you." Hanzo replies, tucking it back in his pocket and turning to head south.

He only gets a few meters away when the unlit omnic calls out to him. "Hey!" He looks over his shoulder, the omnic is standing, their body language saying they’re unsure about something. "If... If you see any zeros with a line through them on the wall, don't go that way."

Hanzo nods and continues on.

He's no fool, despite having to deal with Blackwatch in Japan at the time of the uprising, he knows the stories well. Hanzo makes a mental note to talk to Winston about the possibility of Null Sector coming back.

Emily is delightful company. She's bright and vibrant and it's so easy to see why Tracer and her are soulmates.

She talks about her interests with a passion, and listens to Hanzo speak just as eagerly. There have been few in the world who have ever listened to him go on and on about Fermat's theorem without tuning out.

In a single moment, he wants that desperately. He wants his soulmate, someone who will understand him and who he understands without fail. He aches for it, yearns in the wake of McCree's rejection.

-

A week later, Hanzo is reading in the mess hall, sipping at coffee that is too bitter but he can't bring himself to heap more sugar into it, when Tracer finds him.

She slides in, bumps into his side and stretches over his shoulder. "Hanzooooo." She coos, tilts her head up and bats her eyes.

Hanzo doesn't react to her one bit, taking another drink of his coffee.

"Em's here, you know."

Hanzo rolls his eyes. "I do know. I picked her up for you, remember?"

"Yeah, I do. Thanks for that, by the way. I was afraid I'd have to wait another few months to get her here." Tracer plops down next to him. "She talked about you."

"Did she tell you how horrible I was?"

Tracer snorts. "She did. Em said you were the worst, that you hit on her the whole way here."

Hanzo nods, a smile curling at his lips. "I did, how could I not? She is lovely."

Her laugh rings out as she elbow's Hanzo sharply. Tracer turns to face him, joy on her face. "I told her about your tattoo."

Right. The bouquet. The flourish of color that he tried to forget when he sought more from McCree. Now it just reminds him of the soulmate he cannot find, of the bond he doesn't have.

"She really wants to see it."

Hanzo hums. "You did tell me flowers are her thing, yes?"

"Yeah!" Tracer affirms. "She loves 'em. Sometimes even more than me." She winks with a laugh.

He's unsure.

On one hand he can just live his life, he doesn't need a soulmate, even though he wants one. He's still wary about bringing them into this sort of lifestyle- of making them worry every time he goes out. It can't be fair to them, making them live without him until he can visit or they can come to the watchpoint for a week or two. He isn’t sure how Emily and Tracer manage.

But his curiosity will always get the better of him.

He wants to know more about the flowers, learn more about his soulmate because he owes it to them. If he can't find them, he can at least learn all he can from what they have given him.

"Very well."

No sooner than he's said the words, Tracer is dragging him across the base. Her size is surprisingly deceptive, her strength more than he would have anticipated from such a slight frame.

Her quarters are in a different wing from his, but not entirely too far. They talk about mundane things- the weather this week, future missions, past missions. They chat a little about strategy, laugh at some attempted maneuvers that have ended with them hitting the ground.

Hanzo admires her drive, that ability to fail and fail again, rewinding to try again until she gets it right. She admitted one morning that she’s hesitant to recall as much as she should, afraid one day the accelerator will give out and she’ll be gone.

So Tracer practices just as much as he does, striving to get it right so she never has to redo.

They arrived at her quarters sooner than he wanted, a small churning in his gut making him hesitate as she punches in the code for her door.

Does he want this?

There’s the possibility that the flowers are meaningless, just a pretty collage.

But they could be everything. They could be the solution, the beginning toward finding his soulmate. He needs to know them, he desires to see what they mean to each other. Support, friends, lovers?

The anxiety tears at his chest from the inside and it must show on his face because Tracer gently puts a hand on his arm. She pulls him from his thoughts, smiles and pulls him into her quarters.

He goes willingly.

He wants this.

He needs to know.

Emily is sitting on the bed, in comfy sweats and her hair tied up in a skewed bun. She types into a tablet, tapping the stylus thoughtfully on her cheek as she works.

“Honey, I’m home!” Tracer yells before throwing herself at the bed. She bounces on the end, jostles her girlfriend but Emily gives no sign that she even noticed- perhaps used to it given how long she and Tracer have been together. “I brought a friend, love,” Tracer says with a laugh, playfully swatting at Emily’s knee. “Don’t be rude.”

That certainly gets her attention, a glance from green eyes over the top of thin rimmed glasses. Emily beams when she sees him, though she knows little of him. Just like Tracer, two peas in a pod, eager and positive.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stick around,” Emily apologizes, setting the tablet aside. “I haven’t seen Winston in forever.”

Tracer spreads out, lounging and shoots Hanzo a sly look. “You an’ me got competition, Hanzo. Winston’s the real love of her life.”

Emily rolls her eyes, prodding Tracer with sock-covered feet.

Hanzo laughs, but inside he feels a ache of want. A love like that, so sure without constant romance and coddling, is what he wants. His soulmate will know that Hanzo loves them, even when he doesn’t say it. They will know it in the way Hanzo trusts them with his silent moments, with his space and his time.

Each physical touch, even the teasing ones and the rough ones will convey the bond they share. Every moment of contact will scream the words that Hanzo knows he’ll be too wary to say aloud.

“Think nothing of it.” Hanzo insists. “Winston would be my top choice as well.”

Tracer squeals in laughter and Emily buries her face in her hands with a groan.

Pulling herself together, Tracer sits up, a determined look on her face. She stares down Hanzo and for a moment, he’s afraid that he took it too far somehow.

“Off with the shirt.” She demands.

Stunned. “What-”

She zips up to him, tugging at the hem of his t-shirt. As if showing that he still has a choice, the pulls the edge down instead of up- merely conveying that the garment should go if he still wanted to go through with this. If he wanted to know what importance he held on his skin.

If he was okay with another person seeing the flowers.

“Lena, really?” Emily sounds irritated for him.

Hanzo takes a deep breath. “It is fine.” He tells her just as much as he tells himself.

It’s now or never.

In one fluid motion, he tugs the shirt off, grabbing the collar and pulling up.

Another steadying inhale.

He turns around.

Silence. Almost too much.

“Oh my god.” Comes the exclamation, gentled into a whisper.

There’s a shifting of fabric and he can feel the pair of hands hovering over his skin, not quite touching, respecting his boundaries. It calms him more than he thought it would, eases the set of his shoulders.

“Told you it was beautiful.” Tracer says, calm even though she’s clearly full of energy as she gets him a chair. She puts it in front of him, urges him to sit and lean on the back.

No longer standing helps with the gnawing anxiety. The worry.

What if it really was nothing? What if he could never learn anything about his soulmate and was doomed to wistfully hope about an unknown face in Dorado. He digs his head into his tattooed arms, thankful that both still remain on his body, comforting and familiar.

“It’s gorgeous.” Emily says, rapturous at the flowers that aren’t even his.

Still he thanks her all the same.

Tracer grabs her tablet for her and they both stare at his back, tracing the lines he’s memorized by now. Months with the flowers, a few less without the betta fish.

“May I?” Emily asks, her hand hovering near his back again.

The second he nods, he feels finger tips tracing along the flowers. They touch each and every one, every patch of color given attention.

“Oh…” She says with a hum. “Some of these are older than the others.”

“They sure are. Wow. Think they wimped out when they started it? Had to wait a bit for the rest?” Tracer guesses.

“No, no. They’re years older.” She pauses, inputs something into the tablet and makes a noise of sadness, pity. “The newer ones- oh, Hanzo.” She presses her full palm to his back. “It… isn’t good. Do you still want to know?”

He sucks in a breath, shudders. He needs to know.

“Yes. Please.”

She starts at the bottom. “Aloe is for grief,” Her fingers skim upward. “Rainflower to atone for sins.”

Hanzo freezes inside, his chest tight. He knows those feelings well and for a moment he wonders if he’s crazy and maybe the flowers have been his all along. No soulmate, just his mind trying to make him believe someone, anyone out there could have some sort of connection with him.

Emily’s hands skip around, darting up and down as she finds the flowers on her tablet. “Rue for regret, sorrow, and repentance. White Clover says ‘I promise’.” She traces lines down the side, right where he knows red flowers drape. “Love Lies Bleeding… hopelessness.”

“Are there any morning glories?” He asks suddenly, making Emily pause. It’s a stupid question, he would know if there were any on his back- after all, morning glories were for his mother. But a part of him fears that he’s forgotten what they look like, pushed to the back of his mind when he was young, filed under things he didn’t need to lead the clan.

“No, none of those.”

He lets out a sigh of relief. No morning glories forgotten and the tattoo isn’t his, he knows that he would have gotten some for his mother if he were to ever get flowers tattooed.

Emily continues. “Asphodel, ‘my regrets follow you to the grave’.”

“What does that mean?” Tracer pipes up.

Hanzo finds himself answering. “People dying from your mistakes.” He says, feeling that acutely, though the sharpness of it is dulled by time and the knowledge that he has a new life with Genji. The grave his regrets went into is empty.

“Eglantine Rose for a wound to heal. And Marigolds, pain and more grief.”

He finds himself shaking, but is grateful that neither woman mentions it.

So much pain on his skin, so much agony in his soulmate’s heart that the pain of the tattoo was nothing.

Hanzo’s heart aches for them and he knows he has to find them. He has to be there for them. He has to return the flowers, the expression of that pain and grief. The blossoms are how they coped, and he’s stripped that from them- he has to give it back.

A sudden thought occurs to him. “The sunflowers?”

Emily hums behind him. “Those are from the older ones.”

“Tell me.” He demands. What was his soulmate like before the pain, before the regrets and the ache?

“They are happy ones. Sunflowers for pure and lofty thoughts.” Emily touches one of the two on his back, he knows the placement of them well, the only ones he’s been able to name accurately.

Ambitions, his soulmate had dreams. Hanzo would make them come true.

“An Aster I believe,” She continues. “Love, daintiness, trusting.” Emily pauses for a moment, searches something on her tablet. “Lena, I’m not crazy, right? This one is old too?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

Emily makes a noise of frustration. “It- the others are positive but this one: they’re Desert Willows and generally willow flowers are for a love forsaken.”

Hanzo’s body goes rigid. He knows those flowers. Not the meanings, the names.

Sunflowers. Aster. Desert Willow.

“Doesn’t fit with these. Even this last one, Lily of-”

A sharp knock at the door interrupts her, makes Lena scramble for the door and Hanzo is still trying to sort everything out, not even concerned about covering himself.

“Genji?” Tracer sounds genuinely surprised to see him as she cracks the door, she hadn’t invited him here.

“I’m looking for Hanzo. Couldn’t find him in his room and Athena said he was here.” His brother speaks, leaning in the entryway. That’s right, he promised to meet his brother at the shooting range today.

Hanzo snaps out of his own head for a moment, the world fuzzy. The names pushing at his mind incessantly. Sunflowers. Aster. Desert Willow. “Go ahead, Genji.” Hanzo says and he knows he sounds slow, still in a small stupor. He knows those names. “I will meet you there.”

Not unkindly, Genji steps in. He can’t fault him, Hanzo is right here, why would he leave? Tracer tries to stop him, tries to help Hanzo hide the flowers but Genji sees enough and crows, “I knew there was something going on with you.”

The whole room is stunned to silence, save for his brother who, with no more resistance from Tracer, pushes further into the room.

He whistles as he looks at the tattoo. “Wow he certainly added a lot to it since last time.” Genji comments.

It clicks. Suddenly everything has a place. Each flower tells Hanzo things he already knew about his soulmate, and now they serve as reminders of what Hanzo will mean to his soulmate. Support, someone to hold on to.

“What is it?” Hanzo asks.

Emily jumps. “What? What is what?”

Hanzo grips the back of the chair, feels his nails dig in. He’s drawn tight, everything so clear but he has to make sure. He has to be certain. “The last flower. What is it?”

“Oh, it’s a Lily of the Valley- humility, sweetness, trust,”

Hanzo lifts up from the chair. He knows. He has to go. His soulmate needs him.

He needs his soulmate.

“Returning happiness.”

Hanzo is left breathless. His soulmate doesn’t know- the flowers work both ways, and they mean all the same to Hanzo.

Sunflower fields.

“Athena, where is Agent McCree?”

Aster and Willow.

_“Agent McCree is in the recreational hall.”_

Jesse of the Valley.

He bolts, runs as fast as he can even when his breath is short.

Jesse needs to know.

Hanzo makes a note to apologize to Lena, Emily, and his brother later for his abrupt departure and for flaking on their planned sparring session. But there are more important things right now.

Joy makes him feel swift as he runs across the watchpoint. His soulmate, the one he was prepared to leave for Jesse because Jesse means so much to him, is the cowboy himself.

Against his fears, that everything or nothing would change with his soulmate, just the right things will change. Coffee and nameless booze and shared secret moments; Hanzo can keep all these and make them something more.

Maybe. A pinprick of fear. Jesse was so upset that Hanzo dared to consider a relationship outside of his soulmate, what if he sees it as Hanzo ‘cheating’ on him?

He shouldn’t. If anything, he should believe in Hanzo’s affection, know that Hanzo wants Jesse for being Jesse, not because some ink told him to. He wanted the gunslinger, nothing more, nothing less, and fate was letting him have it.

A small part of him worries too, that it isn’t true. That it’s wishful thinking and projecting.

But the betta fish- if he had Jesse’s flowers, the man has his fish on his foot.

He has to make sure before he announces anything.

Hanzo speeds into the rec hall, sliding a bit on the ground, slamming his elbow into the doorway in his eagerness. The sound draws attention from those present, but Hanzo only has eyes for Jesse who reclines on a chair in the corner, alone.

Oh, how he wishes that scowl wasn’t pointed at him.

He rights himself, brushes invisible dust off his naked chest and strides in. Confident, ready to prove to the cowboy that he was right, that it didn’t matter because his soulmate was Jesse all along. He stands in front of Jesse, staring down at him.

Jesse curls his lip, glaring up. He sits straight, assuming a defensive posture.

“Take off your boots.” Hanzo demands, kicking the cowboy boots with his own shoes.

He knows it might be easier to simply show the man his tattoo, but he worries that it’s not true, and that he’ll look like a desperate fool. Pride wins over in his uncertainty.

“Fuck off, Shimada.” The spark in his eyes is desperate for a fight.

And just like all the times before - the carrier, the kitchen - Hanzo is willing to give him that fight.

Hanzo reaches down, grabs the cowboy’s shirt and hauls him out of the chair.

Jesse goes wild, throws a punch that connects and soon they’re grappling, ignoring the shouts from other team members for them to stop.

He dishes as good as he gets, bends Jesse backwards over the cheap card table, leaning into him until the flimsy structure crumbles beneath them and they fall to the floor.

Instantly they’re back on each other- Jesse fights dirty, bites and scratches, scrappy and unafraid to leave scars.

Hanzo, for his part, just wants his boot off.

Finally, he pins Jesse on his stomach. Hanzo kneels on his hands, careful not to put too much weight onto his real hand and seriously injure him.

He grabs hold of Jesse’s left leg, dragging up to his boot. The gunslinger hisses as he wrenches his shoe off, curses him and his family when Hanzo pulls the sock off too.

From this angle, he has to twist to see Jesse’s foot and when he catches a glimpse of that red betta fish, the other half of the pair, he sags in relief.

When? He tries to think to himself of when it could have happened.

They met in Dorado, where he assumes he got it from, but Jesse never touched him. It was a metal arm around his neck. After that, they didn’t touch at all, not familiar enough for it then.

In fact, Jesse punched him- but that couldn’t be it. He wore the leather glove all the time.

And then after that...

Hanzo punched him back. Bare fist to face. Skin to skin. _Contact._

Laughter bubbles up in his throat and he falls back, seated on Jesse’s back though the man still struggles. He releases his hold on the gunslinger’s hands, which is perhaps a mistake on his end but he finds the whole thing so humorous.

Jesse bucks him off, gets out from underneath him and stares at Hanzo like he’s a madman. “The fuck is your problem!?!” He shouts.

Hanzo stands, facing his counterpart with a broad grin. “I punched you.”

“Are you thick? All you’ve been doin’ is tryin’ to get my boot off.” He snarls.

He steps forward, presses into Jesse’s space. “I punched you.” He repeats.

Jesse doesn’t take it kindly this time, and quick as a whip, grapples him to the ground, pins him there. “You need to leave me the fuck alone, Shimada, or I’ll- I’ll…” He stutters, trails off. He knows.

Jesse knows and Hanzo can tell because suddenly rough, leather clad fingers are dragging down the tattoo. Back up, and then down once more with purpose, like Jesse believes he can peel it off like a sticker and put it back where it belongs. He pauses for a long moment before, “You punched me.”

He stands up suddenly, pulls Hanzo up with him. He grabs his wrist and they run.

The remaining, worried spectators jump out of their way. Winston arrives just as they’re bolting, yelling after them. They don’t stop.

Once more, Hanzo is jerked along after Jesse. His leather glove a barrier between their- one Hanzo hopes to remove.

Together, they arrive at Hanzo’s quarters and he doesn’t even get to ask why before Jesse is pushing him against the door and kissing him. All clashing teeth and no gentleness. Hanzo wants nothing less, the desperation, the sudden right-ness of their bodies together. It’s all he craves in this moment.

“When did you find out?” Jesse asks before trailing his mouth down Hanzo’s neck, biting meanly. Marking. So very similar to their fighting earlier, fire in their blood and in Jesse’s oh-so expressive eyes when he glances at Hanzo.

“Just now.” He replies on a gasp.

Jesse doesn’t stop, bites his skin and pulls at Hanzo’s hair. He reaches down, grabs Hanzo’s legs and hauls him up- it feels so right to wrap his legs around Jesse’s waist, to feel the gunslinger holding him aloft in the hall.

In the open hall.

He fumbles to the side for the keypad. “We should talk.” Hanzo insists, cursing as he fucks up the code.

“Yes.” Jesse growls.

Hanzo manages the second time, concentrating as much as he can with Jesse marking the other side of his neck. “Later.”

_“Yes.”_

They slip inside.


	7. Lily of the Valley

Hanzo tilts his head back, creating space for the hands that wander up his neck. Naked fingers press and prod at forming bruises, red and irritated, dragging up his skin. The digits come together, cupping underneath his jaw and pulling his head further, further until Hanzo is staring at their owner.

He's reclined in Jesse's lap, nestled between strong and hairy thighs. It's a proper throne, befit for a lord and Hanzo lets his dead weight sink further against Jesse. The post coital drowsiness and the comfort of being beside his soulmate makes him lax and languid.

But the sheer excitement of having his soulmate and his desire be one in the same is still causing his heart to race. Excitement, joy.

Happiness.

Jesse smiles with his eyes and presses against the forming bruise on Hanzo's jaw. When Hanzo inhales sharply and clenches his jaw, the gunslinger has the gall to laugh. "You were bein' a dick."

"I was." He agrees, readily. Hanzo is well aware that he is not the easiest man to deal with, regardless of relationship standings.

"You could'a just showed me the flowers."

"I was... frightened." Hanzo struggles to admit. "If they were not yours, I would be a fool who was trying too hard, even after you had said 'no' to anything more. I may be a cruel man, but even I can respect that wish."

Jesse shifts, runs his fingers through Hanzo's hair and the archer's eyes flutter at the sensation.

He allowed himself touch long ago, when he was sure a man such as himself could never have a soulmate. But never had it been so reassuring. Grounding.

It's no tender touch, soft and wistful, but then again, neither of them are suited for such things. Wicked men trying to atone, trying to stay afloat. It's no caress of a lover because a lover would attempt to soothe him with sweet words and coos.

It is the precise contact of a soulmate. Jesse is exactly what Hanzo needs from him- honest and strong, refusing to coddle him. Giving him the independence he's fought for all his life, but still remaining beside him.

"And I was worried that you might reject me, for having, in your eyes, attempted to cheat on you."

Jesse sits up suddenly, drags Hanzo up with him. He curls around Hanzo, capturing the archer's wrists in his hands and holding them, crossing their arms across his body. "No-" He starts, shaky. And then more firmly, "No."

His companion noses at the soft skin behind his ear, draws in a deep breath to think, gathering the right words like he always does.

"I think, it's like you _knew,_ even before you knew. You 'n me- I was certain my soulmate wasn't you. A piece like mine, that's hard to hide." The flowers, large and bold. "I thought for sure my soulmate woulda talked about it nonstop. Figures the one guy I'm meant to be with would keep it private."

They share a chuckle that quickly falls to quiet. They breathe with each other, and Hanzo isn't sure if their breaths synced on purpose, or if this is just the way it was meant to be.

"I wanted it to be you. The second you tried to take those kitchen shears to my face, I knew I was in trouble." He pauses, looks down at their legs tangled together and laughs. "They look a lot better on you."

Hanzo follows his gaze and finds that the betta fish has been returned to his skin. The pair made whole again. He is glad to have the fish back, balanced once more, but he hopes that more of his ink will find its way to Jesse soon- he likes the thought of marking Jesse in ways no one else possibly could.

Jesse hunches over him, kisses the beginnings of a bruise on his cheek, lingering to breathe against his skin, "I ain't good with apologies."

"You are terrible with spoken apologies," Hanzo agrees, dragging Jesse's ungloved hand to his mouth, kissing the back. He plants it right in the aiming reticle that is tattooed there, and hopes that sooner rather than later, it will find its way to Hanzo's skin.

Each possible transfer of ink thrills Hanzo in unbelievable ways, little secrets hidden beneath their gloves and their clothes. No one has to know, no one needs to know, but at the same time, Hanzo is more than certain he will start training without a shirt again.

"But your actions speak louder."

Suddenly, Jesse is gone from behind him and around him, leaving Hanzo to fall to the bed. It takes him a dazed second to sit up, and finds himself watching Jesse raise his arms high with a stretch and an audible grunt of relief. The gunslinger's thighs tremble with the effort and Hanzo lets a self-satisfied grin curl at his lips.

Oh, how he can't wait to get his hands back on Jesse's body. A work of art, perfect in all the ways Hanzo hadn't even imagined he wanted. A feast.

"Lemme shower first and then I'll grab some booze for us, yeah?" Jesse says, turning for the en suite.

There, on his back, it catches Hanzo's attention more than it had the first time.

Flowers, bright and vibrant curl up Jesse's back. The two sunflowers stand proud, but the other three - the asters, willows, and lilies of the valley - are bright and vibrant in blooming clusters. On Hanzo's skin they are covered with the aloe and everything else. Two separate tattoos, one later in life that covered up the other.

He clenches his fists as he thinks about how horrible things must have been for Jesse, to cover up his sisters and himself with the self-loathing and the pain.

Jesse stops in the doorway and throws a look over his shoulder, sly and playful. Nasty in looks, genuine in meaning. A smile Hanzo is instantly smitten with. "I know the stalls ain't that big, but I think we can fit." He says before disappearing inside.

Never before has Hanzo scrambled off the bed in such an undignified manner. But for Jesse, he'll make that sacrifice.

They aren't even in the shower when Hanzo embraces him from behind, bites Jesse's neck in retaliation for the plethora of marks on his own. Each one he soothes with a sloppy kiss.

On Jesse's skin, there is nothing but love, and the rest is left for Hanzo to help him carry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case the image doesn't show up, here's the link to Omaano's piece for this chapter:  
> http://omaano.tumblr.com/post/172181958898/and-last-but-not-least-here-is-the-last-piece-i
> 
> -
> 
> Gosh I am so emotional!  
> This fic was an absolute dream to write and I am so happy to have participated in the event. I encourage everyone to browse the collection and read people's fics- there's no shortage of them, and there's a variety of subjects, AUs, and themes.
> 
> Thank you Dee for hosting this, I hope there will be another next year.
> 
> And thank you again, Omaano and Corgi, for your work with this fic too <3<3<3


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